“I bin tell you yesterday,” the dark youth goes on, “all about the wild fellows’ camp where I stay; where I come from three days ago.”
“The village where you’ve lived since the old digger you were with got killed? Yes, I remember about it. Are we near to it?”
“Yes, boss. Now I think this way. I was very sick when I get this far from where I plant the doctor, and I wonder sometimes if I able to pick up my pad (tracks) after all this time. I remember country near grave; not this way. You see, I was very sick this end of the stage.”
“I understand, Billy; but what has that to do with the wild fellows’ camp?”
“Just see here, boss, I think I better go to black camp and get two boys—one won’t come without a mate. These people very good at the track. They find my old pad, and bime-by, when I come to country I know, boys come back. You like?”
“All right, Billy,” complies Claude, “but will you be able to get the blacks to come? They won’t like to leave the ranges, especially to go along with white folk. And I don’t blame them, either.”
“Well, you see, boss, the doctor, he bin to their camp two, no three time, and they like him. He very good to them. When the old hatter get killed by them cussed Kalkadoones, I think to myself, I make tracks back to this camp, and by-and-by doctor’s friends come along and I hear of them.”
“And I’m very glad you had the ‘savez’ to do so,” responds Claude, patting Billy on his shoulder.
The black’s eyes brighten at the praise given him by the master to whom he has begun to transfer those dog-like affections lately left objectless by the death of Dr. Dyesart.
“The wild fellow,” he continues, “bin very glad to see me when I come along. There was komorbory tuck-out (plenty of food). I tell them doctor was dead, and me like to live with them for a time.”