Arrived at the camp, Bill made a bed of leaves for Jess beside the gunyah, and placed her down upon it very gently, with an old blanket of his own folded round her body in such a way that she could not reach the wound with her mouth. Then he mounted the horse which he had driven before him, and galloped back to the blind gully armed with a small coil of line.
When Bill returned with the old-man lashed on his horse's back, he found Finn affectionately licking the black hound's muzzle. Jess had not moved an inch.
[CHAPTER XXI]
THREE DINGOES WENT A-WALKING
Wallaby Bill showed himself a kind and shrewd nurse where Jess, his one intimate friend, was concerned. He had no milk to give the sorely wounded hound, but the thin broth he made for her that Sunday night formed almost as suitable a food for her; and before leaving her for the night the man was very careful to see that her lacerated body was well covered. For her part, Jess was too weak and ill to be likely to interfere with the wound; even the slight lifting of her head to lap a little broth seemed to tax her strength to the utmost. All night Finn lay within a couple of yards of the kangaroo-hound; and in the morning, soon after dawn, he brought her a fresh-killed rabbit and laid it at her feet. Finn meant well, but Jess did not even lick the kill, and as soon as Bill appeared he looked in a friendly way at Finn, and then removed the rabbit. But he afterwards skinned and boiled it for Finn's own delectation, and at the time he said--
"You're a mighty good sort, Wolf, and you can say I said so."
After making the black hound as comfortable as he could, Bill rode off for his day's work. He had rigged a good shelter over Jess with the help of a couple of sheets of stringy-bark and a few stakes. He gave her a breakfast of broth, and left a dish of water within an inch of her nose, where she could reach it without moving her body. Lastly, as a precaution against the possibility of movement on Jess's part, he stitched the old blanket behind her in such a way as to prevent its leaving her wound exposed. He looked over his shoulder several times after riding away, thinking that Finn would be likely to follow him. But the Wolfhound remained standing, some twenty paces from Jess's shelter, and, when the man was almost out of sight, stepped forward and lay down within a yard or two of the kangaroo-hound.
"Queer card, that Wolf!" muttered Bill, as he rode away. "But he's pretty white, too; whiter'n some men, I reckon, for all he's so mighty suspicious."
In some climates any dog would have succumbed to the injuries Jess had sustained; and even in the beautiful air of the Tinnaburra, a town-bred dog would probably have gone under. But Jess was of a tough, bush-bred stock; she had lived in the open all her life, and the air she breathed now, in her shelter beside the gunyah, was aromatic with the scent of that useful antiseptic which in every part of the world has done good service in the prevention of fever--eucalyptus. Blue gum, red gum, grey gum, stringy-bark, iron-bark, and black-butt; the trees which surrounded Jess for fifty miles on every side were practically all of the eucalyptus family. Insects bothered her a good deal it is true, but Finn did much in the way of warding off their attacks, and the wound itself was well protected.