Buck wept over the bleeding flanks, and forgot that his own foot swung helpless. Randal bound it with all the rags at command, and knotted the bandage with flax-strips. But his hands and his heart were numbed by more than the chill of the night, and the crash of his knuckles on the young smooth forehead was loud yet in his ears.
“Best wallop some water over that chap, I reckon,” remarked Mogger, making investigation, and he brought a capful from the first spring.
Art Scannell had been half-killed too often to submit to unconsciousness long. At the third repeat he sat up, came to his feet, and said just one sentence:
“You’ll come up to the house for your cheque to-night, Randal.”
Randal said nothing. He was wondering what comes after the end of all things, and he walked out into the dark of the gully as a man walks in an unknown land.
“Does he mean it?” cried Mogger, as the black mare tore past him with Art Scannell kicking for the stirrups. “Does he mean ter sack yer true, Randal? Why didn’t yer kill him, then, an’ hev done with it?”
Randal’s boots brushed the little flames battening on the dug-out stumps, and each red eye brought back memory of that which he would not see any more. The boys marvelled that
