That night at about ten o'clock, when Professor Thunder was concentrating the attention of his patrons on the fascinating boniness of Matty Cann, Nickie, who was taking his ease on the straw, became aware of a slight disturbance at his elbow, between the back of his cage and the tent wall. Blinking his eyes he discovered the shape of a man in the darkness. The man held a pannikin in one hand, and was offering it through the bars.
"Here, old boy. Here old fellow," murmured the intruder, in a tone one adopts in propitiating strange dogs.
He shook the pannikin, and the Missing Link detected the familiar flavour of rum, good red-rum, bush rum. Nickie sniffed again, and backed away, growling a low, guttural growl. The Missing Link had a great tenderness for rum, the smell of it excited profound longings, but he wanted time to deliberate. What was the game? "These fellows have heard Thunder describing Mahdi's fondness for liquor," thought Nickie. "They want to make him drunk, and see him play up. It's a lark. Shall I encourage them? I can do it safely to a moderate extent. It's like flying in the face of Providence missing drinks that are thrown at you. I'll encourage them to the extent of one drink, anyhow. Here's luck."
The Missing Link seized that pannikin of rum, the Missing Link took a good, long pull, and in less than half a minute was curled up on the straw, dead to the world, a thoroughly hocussed man-monkey.
When Professor Thunder came to shake up his justly celebrated Link, he found the cage empty, and a bar wrenched from its place in the back wall. He drew his own conclusions—conclusions most unfavourable to Mahdi—and used his own language. He closed his show, and went raging about Loo township in quest of his stray freak.
Nickie the Kid awakened from a death-like sleep in the early hours of a warm summer Sunday. Dawn steeped the bush in crimson, the smoke of a dying camp-fire curled high in the air and its top most spiral caught the red glow of the young sun. About that camp-fire, twisted on their rugs and blankets on the grass in the quaint attitudes of out-door drunks, lay four shearers, Bill, Mike, Ben, and Fred. Near them were scattered various bottles, all empty.
Nickie rubbed his eyes with his hairy paw, and stared at the recumbent figures. His head seen as capacious as an iron tank, and every inch of it held a special and independent ache. The Missing Link was trying to think.
Understanding came in a flash. He had been stolen from the show. These rascals had given him hocussed rum, and had got him away, probably tied to one of the horses. His aching limbs hinted at that, and he could see the horses grazing among the trees.
Nickie reviewed the situation. He was tethered to a tree, his bonds were stout, and his captors had not made sufficient allowance for the almost human intelligence of Professor Thunder's star performer. All about were scattered the utensils of a late supper, and with the aid of a stick the Link contrived to draw a knife within reach. With this he promptly cut the rope.
When free Nickie went quietly and deliberately to work to overhaul an open swag. He took a coat, pair of trousers, a pair of boots, and a hat, and with these under his arm retired to the bush to make his toilet.