“Are you hurt, Ned?” he shouted. “Here—your foot on mine, and up behind me—quick.”
Ned stood swaying and looking at him stupidly. “Wake up, man,” yelled Steve. “The cattle are near on us. Hurry.” But Ned still stood slack and inert as a drunken man, and even as he spoke Steve saw his knees give beneath him, and he almost sank to the ground. The cattle were perilously close, and Steve could see the man was half stunned. “Ned,” he yelled again, but Ned’s chin dropped on his chest. With an oath Steve jerked his whip round, the thong swung up, and with a hissing snap slashed down across Ned’s back in a vicious drawing cut. The shirt split from waist to shoulder, and the blood sprang under the lash as if under the stroke of a knife. Ned’s knees straightened with a snap, and he reached a hand up and back over his shoulder, and he swore thickly. But the sting had brought some of his senses back to him, and Steve saw his quickened glance round. “Up, Ned,” he shouted. “Give me your hand, and up behind me.” The cattle were almost on them—Ned reached out and took the outstretched hand. With his eye on the charging line Steve waited to feel the foot on his that would tell him Ned was mounting. Ned’s foot fumbled and slipped, and Steve clenched his teeth and waited. The cattle had only fifty yards to come—thirty—twenty—Ned heaved himself heavily up, and Steve sank his fingers in his grip on the other’s, and helped the heave with every tense muscle of his body. He waited till he felt the other drop into place, and then with a yell gave his horse the spurs.
It was a close thing—deadly close. The front ranks of the cattle had split a little at the sight of them, and crowded aside to try to pass clear, and for the first few bounds of his horse Steve was riding in the front rank of the mob with a galloping brute so close on either side that he could have reached out and touched it. He yelled and cut at them with his whip once or twice, and then gave all his attention to racing to get first to the fork of the roads at Split-the-Wind.
Despite the double burden the horse carried, he was gaining in the race. “Feel all right, Ned?” he asked. “Can you hang on?”
“I’m right,” said Ned, thickly. “I can hang on.” He was still a little dazed, but his mind was clearing, and he settled himself in his seat and took a closer grip round Steve’s waist. Steve was in waistcoat and shirt-sleeves, and as he held on, Ned found his thumb in the pocket of the waistcoat. He felt a screw of paper there. He hardly knew why he did it, but his finger slipped in with his thumb, and next instant he had the twisted paper in his hand.
The horse stopped with a sliding jerk, and Steve shouted at him; he slid down, and Steve flung himself to the ground and ran forward shouting and cracking his whip, and leaving Ned standing with the paper in his hand.
Steve looked over his shoulder and shouted to him.
“Get some of those dry gum-branches and leaves, Ned, and make a blaze—quick—here they come.”
Ned slipped the paper in his pocket.