Mates at Billabong Part 30

Then came a dazed time, when she did not know anything clearly. Once, lying on her bed, with her face pressed into the pillow, trying not to see a lean head that beat on the ground, she heard a dull sound that rose to an angry shout from the men; and immediately the buggy drove away quickly, as Wally took Cecil away from Billabong. She only shivered, pressing her face harder. Jim was always near at first; the touch of his hand made her calm when dreadful, shuddering fits came over her. All through the night he sat by her bed, watching ceaselessly.

Then there was a longer time when she was alone, and there seemed much going to and fro. But no sounds touched her nearly. She could only think of Bobs, lying in the bracken, and calling silently to her with his pain-filled eyes.

Then, late on, the second evening, Jim came back with a troubled face and sat on the bed.

"Norah," he said, "I want you."

"Yes, Jim?"

"I want you to be brave, old chap," he said slowly. Something in his tone made her start and scan his tired face.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It may be all right," Jim said, "but--but I thought I'd better tell you, Norah, they--we can't find Dad!"

CHAPTER XVIII

BROTHER AND SISTER

We were mates together, And I shall not forget.

W. H. OGILVIE.

Jim had not wanted to tell Norah. It had been Brownie who had counselled differently.

"I think she's got enough to bear," the boy had said, sitting on the edge of the kitchen table, and flicking his boots mechanically with his whip. He had been riding hard almost all day, but anxiety, not fatigue, had put the lines into his face. "What's the good of giving her any more?"

"I do believe it'd be best for her, the poor lamb!" Brownie had said.

"She's there all day, not speaking--it'll wear her out. An' you know, Master Jim, dear, she'd never forgive us for keepin' anything back from her about the master."

"No--but we've nothing definite. And it may make her really ill, coming on top of the other."

"I don't think Miss Norah's the sort to let herself get ill when there was need of her. It may take her poor mind off the other--she can't help that now, an' he was only a pony--"

"Only a pony! By George, Brownie--!"

"Any horse is only a pony when compared to your Pa," said Brownie, unconscious of anything peculiar in her remark. "I don't know that real anxiety mayn't help her, Master Jim. And any'ow, it don't seem to me we've the right to keep it from her, them bein', as it were, that partickler much to each other. Take my tip, an' you tell her."

"What do you think, Wally?"

"I'm with Brownie," said Wally, unexpectedly. "It's awful to see Norah lying there all day, never saying a word, and this'll rouse her up when nothing else would." So Jim had yielded to the weight of advice, and had gone slowly up to tell Norah they could not find David Linton.

"Can't find him?" she echoed, "but isn't he at Killybeg?"

"He left there yesterday morning," Jim answered. "A telegram came from him last night, and it was important--something about cattle--so I sent Burton into Cunjee with it--Killybeg's on the telephone now, you know, and Burton could ring him up from the post office. But the Darrells were astonished, and said he'd left there quite early, and meant to come straight home."

"Well?" Norah was white enough now.

"Well, I got worried, and so did Murty; because you know there isn't any stopping place between here and Killybeg when you come across the ranges. And Monarch's pretty uncertain--in rough country, especially. So I got Murty and Wally to go out at daylight this morning, taking the straight line to the Darrells, and they picked up his tracks pointing homewards about five miles from the Billabong boundary. Murty made Monarch's shoes himself, and he could swear to them anywhere. They followed them awhile, and they came to a place where the ground was beaten down a lot, as if he'd had trouble with Monarch; I expect something scared him, and he played the fool. But after that the tracks led on to some stony rises, and they lost them; the ground was too hard. They could only tell he'd gone right off the line to Billabong."

"Jim! Do you think--? Oh, he couldn't be hurt! Monarch would never get rid of him."

"He'd stick to Monarch as long as the girth held and Monarch stood up,"

Jim said, "but it's rough country, and a young horse isn't handy on those sidings. Of course it may be all right; but if so, why wasn't he home twenty-four hours ago?"

"Have you done anything?"

"Been out all day," Jim said. "Murty sent Wal. straight home while he went on looking, and we went back with three of the men. But you know what that country is, all hills and gullies, and the scrub's so thick you can scarcely get through it in places. We found one or two hoof marks, but that was all. If he's not home to-night we're going out at daybreak with every hand on the place."

"I'm coming."

"I knew you'd want to," Jim said, anxiety in his tone. "But I don't think you're fit to, old girl."

"Jimmy, I'd go mad if I stayed behind."

"Oh, I know that, too. But you'll have to stay near me, Norah, and if you're coming you've got to eat now; Brownie says you've touched nothing all day."

Norah shivered a little. "I'm not hungry."

"No, but you've sense, old chap. You'd be the first to say one of us couldn't go out without proper food. Try, won't you?"

"I'll try," Norah said, obediently.

"Brownie's got dinner for Wally and me in the breakfast-room," Jim said. "Wouldn't you come down, old girl? It's only old Wal., you know, and--and he's so awfully sorry for you, Nor. He's been such a brick. I think it would cheer him up a bit if you came down."

"All right," Norah said, hesitating a moment. "But I'm bad company, Jim."

"We're none of us lively," said the boy. "But we've got to help each other." And Norah looked at him gently, and came.

Dinner was quiet, for the shadow hung upon them all. Wally tried to talk cheerfully, checked by a lump that would rise in his throat whenever he looked at Norah, who was "playing the game" manfully, trying hard to eat and to be, as she would have said, "ordinary." They talked of the plans for the next day, when a systematic search was to be made through the scrub near where the tracks had been found.

"Each of us is to take a revolver," Jim said; "there are five altogether, and the men who haven't got them will have to use their stockwhips as signals if they find anything. Three shots to be fired in the air if help is wanted. And Brownie has flasks ready for every one, and little packets of food with some chocolate; if he's come to grief it'll be nearly forty-eight hours since he had anything to eat. Two of the men are to take the express wagon out as far as it can go, with everything to make him comfortable, if--if he's hurt. Then they can ride the horses on to help us search." Jim forced a sorry smile. "Won't he grin at us if he turns up all right? We'll never hear the end of it!"

Then he got up abruptly and walked to the window, looking out across the moonlit flats; and they were all silent.

"I keep thinking all the time I hear him coming," Jim said, turning back into the room. "If you keep still, you can almost swear you can hear old Monarch's hoofs coming up the track--and half a dozen times I've been certain I caught the crack of his stockwhip. Of course, it's--it's all imagination. My word! it's hard to loaf about here and go to bed comfortably when you want to be hunting out there."

"You couldn't do any good, though?" asked Wally.

"No--it would be madness to go straying round those gullies in the moonlight; it's not even full moon, and there the timber's so thick that very little light can get through. There's nothing for it but to wait until daylight."

"It's hard waiting," Norah said.

"Yes, it is. But you ought to go to bed, old woman; you had precious little sleep last night, and the big bell is to ring at daylight."

"Then won't you boys go, too?"