going steady. Then all hands reckoned that the search was over, and they were soon collected round the spot.
"Now, that little girl was only five years old; and she had walked nothing less than twenty-two miles—might be nearer twenty-five."
There was a minute's silence. Personal observation, or trustworthy report, had made every one of Thompson's audience familiar with such episodes of new settlement; and, for that very reason, his last remark came as a confirmation rather than as an over-statement. Nothing is more astonishing than the distances lost children have been known to traverse.
"How did poor Rory take it?" I asked.
"Dan? Well he took it bad. When he saw her face, he gave one little cry, like a wounded animal; then he sat down on the bilby-heap, with her on his knees, wiping the mould out of her mouth, and talking baby to her.
"Not one of us could find a word to say; but in a few minutes we were brought to ourselves by thunder and lightning in earnest, and the storm was on us with a roar. And just at this moment Webster of Kulkaroo came up with the smartest blackfellow in that district.
"We cleared out one of the wagonettes, and filled it with pine leaves, and laid a blanket over it. And Spanker gently took the child from Dan, and laid her there, spreading the other half of the blanket over her. Then he thanked all hands, and made them welcome at the station, if they liked to come. I went, for one; but Bob went back to Kulkaroo direct, so I saw no more of him till to-night.
"Poor Dan! He walked behind the wagonette all the way, crying softly, like a child, and never taking his eyes from the little shape under the soaking wet blanket. Hard lines for him! He had heard her voice calling him, not an hour before; and now, if he lived till he was a hundred, he would never hear it again.
"As soon as we reached the station, I helped Andrews, the storekeeper, to make the little coffin. Dan would n't have her buried in the station cemetery; she must be buried in consecrated ground, at Hay. So we boiled a pot of gas-tar to the quality of pitch, and dipped long strips of wool-bale in it, and wrapped them tight round the coffin, after the lid was on, till it was two ply all over, and as hard and close as sheet-iron. Ay, and by this time more than a dozen blackfellows had rallied-up to the station.
"Spanker arranged to send a man with the wagonette, to look after the horses for Dan. The child's mother wanted to go with them, but Dan refused to allow it, and did so with a harshness that surprised me. In the end, Spanker sent Ward, one of the narangies. I happened to camp with them four nights ago, when I was coming down from Kulkaroo, and they were getting back to Goolumbulla. However," added Thompson, with sublime lowliness of manner, "that's what I meant by saying that, in some cases, a person's all the better for being uncivilised. You see, we were nowhere beside Bob, and Bob was nowhere beside the old lubra."
"Had you much of a yarn with the poor fellow when you met him?" I asked.
