"You won't be going just yet. I want to see you before you start to send a message to Alec. It will be no use your getting there before evening. I must go now. Beffy, see that Mr. Yesslett has a good breakfast, he has had nothing to-day. And get something for Balchin at the same time." Saying this, with the letter in one hand and the little saucepan of beef-tea in the other, Margaret left the kitchen very thoughtfully.
"Yes, miss, for sure. I likes to see men eat well, and you must be keen, Master Yesslett. Draw up t' table—if y' likes to wait I'll get a cloth. Begin a' the bread 'n' butter whiles I poach 'e a couple of eggs. I knows how y' like 'em, not hard, but set like. Then I'll have a chop down in a brace o' shakes, as my aunt used t' say. There, there, begin, then. Don't sit a thinking; nothin' 'll come out o' your head if y' put nothing into y' stomach."
"I've got a great deal to think of," said Yesslett, looking up, with a smile at her quaintness. "There is Alec in the hands of the bushrangers, and only me to get him out."
"Ah, an' fine an' hungry he'll be, I'll be bound. But you won't help him by refusin' y' vittle, so here's th' eggs to go on with, an' if the sizzlin' o' them chops don't give you a appetite for 'em, I don't know what will."
"Tell Balchin to come in, then. He's as hungry as I am."
CHAPTER XXV.
YESSLETT'S ADVENTURE.
Yesslett did not start for several hours after he had formed the resolution of riding to Alec's assistance. He made inquiries from different people about the station, and found that he could easily ride to Norton's Gap in two hours and a half, and as he did not wish to arrive there much before sunset, he waited till the long, slow afternoon had passed its prime. He had taken Margaret's advice, and had changed his clothes for old and very shabby ones; he had found an old hat, that looked disreputable even in that part, where new ones were a rarity, and with this flapping a limp and torn brim over his forehead, and with burst and ragged boots, long innocent of blacking, he looked in as poor a plight as any out-of-work lad could do, and as little like the clean and fairly well-clad Yesslett Dudley as it was possible for him to appear.
There was one thing he had determined to do, of the advisability of which he was not fully convinced, and that was to take Alec's horse Amber with him. He knew he could not ride the chestnut himself, for the spirited creature would never let any one but Alec mount him, so he intended leading it by the bridle. His reason for this resolution was hardly plain to himself, but he had some half-formed idea in his brain of possibly managing an escape for his cousin, and he knew that Amber would be invaluable in any such attempt, could he only succeed in getting Alec away for a moment from the men who detained him. Yesslett had no definite plan in his mind when he resolved to take this second horse; he was trusting, in a very boyish manner, to that good fortune which it is so difficult for the young to believe does not always await them. It was this blind confidence that "something would turn up" which prompted his action, and trusting implicitly to Providence, though at the same time with a certain belief in himself, he set out on his Quixotic errand.
Yesslett travelled quietly, wishing to keep his horses as fresh as possible on the chance of his requiring their services that night. He followed the same route that he had passed over in the morning when tracking the bushrangers, and struck the Dixieville road very near the place where Alec had turned on to it the night before. The road was very little used since the dwindling township of Dixieville had gone down in the scale, and at that hour it was quite deserted. Yesslett had, however, carefully primed himself with instructions before he left Wandaroo, and keeping to the road till he came to what he thought, from the descriptions of it given to him, must be Badger's Creek, he turned southward by the side of the shadowy gulch and rode boldly on towards the dark, wild stretch of bush before him. There was no definite road to Norton's Gap and Lingan's, but the frequent passage of the bushrangers' horses and the marks of the Lingan's carts and cattle had formed a sort of track which was indistinct and broad over the more open ground, but which narrowed in again to something bearing the semblance to a path when the way lay through the uncleared bush.