"What is all this, Tom Cross?" said Allan. "How did you get this terrible upset?"
"Rattler took fright and dashed off with us," said Tom; and lowering his voice," I think it is all over with the poor gentleman. Neither me nor the girl there can make him speak, and it's a quarter of an hour since we had the spill. It was on his head, d'ye see, and that's bad."
"Oh! papa, dearest papa, do speak to me!" said the child. "Oh! please do try to revive him!" and she turned to the stranger, as if he must be able to do something, when such unlooked-for assistance had come to aid her own and the groom's inadequate efforts. "He is only fainting; mamma used to faint often if she was a little too tired, and this was a terrible fall. Oh! if I had any drops to give him!"
The young bushman took a flask out of his pocket, and tried to get a few drops out of it into the mouth of the stranger, but it was of no avail. He had been pitched on his head with great violence, and a concussion of the brain had caused instant death.
"Will he never speak?" said the child again.
"Can we not send for a doctor, and get him taken to a house?"
"You cannot go so far as Mr. Hammond's, but Branxholm is not far off, and you can take him
