It Is Never Too Late to Mend Part 89

"Black fellow stupid fellow--look too far off," and he laughed again for all the world like a jackdaw.

"What is it?"

"A little water; not much."

"Where is it? Where is it? Why don't you tell me where it is?"

"Come," was the answer.

Not forty yards from where they stood Jacky stopped and thrusting his hand into a tuft of long gra.s.s pulled out a short blue flower with a very thick stem. "Saw him spark from the top of the tree," said Jacky with a grin. "This fellow stand with him head in the air but him foot in the water. Suppose no water he die a good deal quick." Then taking George's hand he made him press the gra.s.s hard, and George felt moisture ooze through the herb.

"Yes, my hand is wet, but, Jacky, this drop won't save a beast's life without it is a frog's."

Jacky smiled and rose. "Where that wet came from more stay behind."

He pointed to other patches of gra.s.s close by, and following them showed George that they got larger and larger in a certain direction. At last he came to a hidden nook, where was a great patch of gra.s.s quite a different color, green as an emerald. "Water," cried Jacky, "a good deal of water." He took a jump and came down flat on his back on the gra.s.s, and sure enough, though not a drop of surface water was visible, the cool liquid squirted up in a shower round Jacky.

Nature is extremely fond of producing the same things in very different sizes. Here was a miniature copy of those large Australian lakes which show nothing to the eye but rank gra.s.s. You ride upon them a little way, merely wetting your horse's feet, but after a while the sponge gets fuller and fuller, and the gra.s.s shows symptoms of giving way, and letting you down to "bottomless perdition."

They squeezed out of this gra.s.s sponge a calabash full of water, and George ran with it to the panting beast. Oh! how he sucked it up, and his wild eye calmed, and the liquid life ran through all his frame!

It was hardly in his stomach before he got up of his own accord, and gave a most sonorous moo, intended no doubt to express the sentiment of "never say die."

George drove them all to the gra.s.sy sponge, and kept them there till sunset. He was three hours squeezing out water and giving it them before they were satisfied. Then in the cool of the evening he drove them safe home.

The next day one more of his strayed cattle found his way home. The rest he never saw again. This was his first dead loss of any importance; unfortunately, it was not the last.

The brutes were demoralized by their excursion, and being active as deer they would jump over anything and stray.

Sometimes the vagrant was recovered--often he was found dead; and sometimes he went twenty miles and mingled with the huge herds of some Croesus, and was absorbed like a drop of water and lost to George Fielding. This was a bitter blow. This was not the way to make the thousand pounds.

"Better sell them all to the first comer, and then I shall see the end of my loss. I am not one of your lucky ones. I must not venture."

A settler pa.s.sed George's way driving a large herd of sheep and ten cows. George gave him a dinner and looked over his stock. "You have but few beasts for so many sheep," said he.

The other a.s.sented.

"I could part with a few of mine to you if you were so minded."

The other said he should be very glad, but he had no money to spare.

Would George take sheep in exchange?

"Well," drawled George, "I would rather it had been cash, but such as you and I must not make the road hard to one another. Sheep I'll take, but full value."

The other was delighted, and nearly all George's bullocks became his for one hundred and fifty sheep.

George was proud of his bargain, and said, "That is a good thing for you and me, Susan, please G.o.d."

Now the next morning Abner came in and said to George, "I don't like some of your new lot--the last that are marked with a red V."

"Why, what is wrong about them?"

"Come and see."

He found more than one of the new sheep rubbing themselves angrily against the pen, and sometimes among one another.

"Oh dear!" said George, "I have prayed against this on my knees every night of my life, and it is come upon me at last. Sharpen your knife, Abner."

"What! must they all--"

"All the new lot. Call Jacky, he will help you; he likes to see blood. I can't abide it. One hundred and fifty sheep; eighteen-pennorth of wool, and eighteen-pennorth of fat when we fling 'em into the pot--that is all that is left to me of yesterday's deal."

Jacky was called.

"Now, Jacky," said George, "these sheep have got the scab of the country; if they get to my flock and taint it I am a beggar from that moment. These sheep are sure to die, so Abner and you are to kill them.

He will show you how. I can't look on and see their blood and my means spilled like water. Susan, this is a black day for us!"

He went away and sat down upon a stone a good way off, and turned his back upon his house and his little homestead. This was not the way to make the thousand pounds.

The next day the dead sheep were skinned and their bodies chopped up and flung into the copper. The grease was skimmed as it rose, and set aside, and when cool was put into rough barrels with some salt and kept up until such time as a merchant should pa.s.s that way and buy it.

"Well!" said George, with a sigh, "I know my loss. But if the red scab had got into the large herd, there would have been no end to the mischief."

Soon after this a small feeder at some distance offered to change with McLaughlan. That worthy liked his own ground best, but willing to do his friend George a good turn he turned the man over to him. George examined the new place, found that it was smaller but richer and better watered, and very wisely closed with the proposal.

When he told Jacky that worthy's eyes sparkled.

"Black fellow likes another place. Not every day the same."

And in fact he let out that if this change had not occurred his intention had been to go a-hunting for a month or two, so weary had he become of always the same place.

The new ground was excellent, and George's hopes, lately clouded, brightened again. He set to work and made huge tanks to catch the next rain, and as heretofore did the work of two.

It was a sad thing to have to write to Susan and tell her that after twenty months' hard work he was just where he had been at first starting. One day, as George was eating his homely dinner on his knee by the side of his princ.i.p.al flock, he suddenly heard a tremendous scrimmage mixed with loud, abusive epithets from Abner. He started up, and there was Carlo pitching into a sheep who was trying to jam herself into the crowd to escape him. Up runs one of the sheep-dogs growling, but instead of seizing Carlo, as George thought he would, what does he do but fall upon another sheep, and spite of all their evasions the two dogs drove the two sheep out of the flock and sent them pelting down the hill. In one moment George was alongside Abner.

"Abner," said he, "how came you to let strange sheep in among mine?"

"Never saw them till the dog pinned them."

"You never saw them," said George reproachfully. "No, nor your dog either till my Carlo opened your eyes. A pretty thing for a shepherd and his dog to be taught by a pointer. Well," said George, "you had eyes enough to see whose sheep they were. Tell me that, if you please?"

Abner looked down.

"Why, Abner?"

"I'd as lieve bite off my tongue as tell you."

George looked uneasy and his face fell.