Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/246

 trotters (step out), for it's too hot an' heavy for the horses to take all on yer."

We tramped on ahead, or beside the trap, to escape the dust. It was a long, smothering, hot stretch, and we had to stop now and again to attend to the sick man; and at last we struck one of the long gutters that ran the water into the Government tank, and presently, round a bend in the track, the tank-heap loomed before us on the open plain like a mountain against the afterglow.

While Jimmy was watering his horses at the long troughs, Mitchell went, with the billy, into the little galvanized iron pumping- engine room, where the tank-keeper (an old sailor) was, and when he came out I saw, by the half -moon, a decided grin on his face.

"What now, Jack?" I asked.

"Jimmy's luck's in for the day, Harry, and no mistake," said Mitchell. "There's a man there with a bad leg!"

"Wot's that about a bad leg?" demanded Jimmy, whose sharp ears caught the last words. Jack told him.

"Where's his mate?" growled Jimmy.

"Left him at the border Saturday week, and he's been crawling back ever since," said Mitchell. "Making for the hospital at Bourke. Says he was bit by a dog a couple of years ago. His leg looks a sight."

The station was not far away, but on a branch track of its own, an anabranch track, in fact; and Jimmy had told us we'd better come on to the station and have a good tuck-out, and one of us, at least, would