"And, Bob," said he, almost tearfully, "it was Mackay——"
"You stop, right there, youngster," interrupted that gentleman, "I'll tak' nane o' the credit from you. You deserve it a', my lad. I'm proud o' you, I am. Now, I think you'd both be the better o' a rest. I'll go up and see how the other boys are getting on. I hope none o' the grinning hyenas noticed anything."
But the "grinning hyenas" had noticed, and Mackay met them in a body immediately he went out of the tent. There was the Shadow, Nuggety, Emu Bill, and company hastening forward, dismay showing plainly on their features.
"What's happened, Mac? Any one killed?" they shouted.
"Calm yoursel's, boys, calm yoursel's," adjured Mackay, "there's been no serious damage done. But I'll need to timber the roof o' the drive before we do any more work below; a bit o' it fell and gave young Bob a nasty crack on the cranium just as he fired a heavy charge. Jack got him out a' richt, but it vera nearly was a funeral."
Very sincere were the sympathetic expressions of the group. The unassuming attitude of Mackay's mates, as the boys were called, their happy temperament, had endeared them to the dwellers on Golden Flat, and now they trooped into the tent, and, in their rough kindly way, congratulated the pair on their escape, much to Jack's confusion. No truer-hearted men could be found than those battered pioneers of the desert land. Their life amid Nature's grim solitudes is one filled with unceasing cares, unseen dangers lurk for ever in their lonely path, their stern, set faces are but the result of bush environment which insidiously yet surely marks its victims with her stamp of immobility.
"You'll be all right in a day or so, Bob," spoke Nuggety Dick, cheerily, after examining the wound.
"If ye'll let me, I'll take your shift until ye're better," said the Shadow, hesitatingly; "I can't do much in my own shaft now without a mate, it's too deep for me to work alone."