It was a very depressed Eustace who appeared at breakfast. He took Robertson's unabated amusement so gravely that the engineer stopped laughing at him, and wondered if the youngster were sulking.
Mrs. Orban felt a good deal distressed to see how pale the boy was, and that he could hardly touch the food set before him. But every one showed signs of exhaustion, as was natural after two nights of such unusual strain. Mrs. Orban kept Eustace with her all day, setting him small jobs to keep him occupied. They all went to bed early that night, and the household slept without rocking.
Next day, in the cool of the morning, Bob Cochrane rode over to inquire how the Orbans were getting on. Eustace heard him come—the boy was on the lookout for this particular visit—and as Bob walked round one side of the veranda, Eustace disappeared along the other, left a message with Mary that he was going down to the mill, and started away from the house at a run. The truth was, he felt he simply could not be present while Bob listened to the story of his absurd adventures; he wanted the narration to be over before he faced the fusillade of chaff with which the young fellow might pepper him. "He'll think me a silly little fool, I know he will," Eustace told himself again and again; "and he'll say, 'What did I tell you about shooting recklessly?' I expect he'll think I'm a baby, not fit to be trusted with firearms. It's disgusting, just when I was hoping he might begin to think me worth taking out shooting with him soon."
Thoroughly out of conceit with himself, Eustace wished he need not go home at all until Bob was certain to be gone. But no sooner did he reach the mill and begin wandering about the rooms full of machinery than it struck him it had been rather cowardly even to run away for a time. Bob would know he had not felt equal to facing him, and perhaps he would despise that as much as he was bound to be amused at the other. The lad had a sharp tussle with himself, and at last started back up the hill with the feelings of a most unwilling martyr going to the stake.
He was about two-thirds of the way up when he caught sight of Bob Cochrane coming swinging down towards him. Bob was just the kind of fellow every boy wants to grow into—big, well-made, splendidly manly; he looked jolly in his riding-suit.
"Hulloa!" he called as soon as he came within speaking distance.
"Hulloa!" Eustace called back tonelessly, his heart thumping hard, his colour coming and going ridiculously.
Bob waited till they met. Then, "Well, youngster," he said gravely, putting a big hand on the lad's shoulder and walking on beside him, "you've had a rough time since I saw you last. I don't wonder you shot at that dingo in the way you did; I should have done it myself, I believe, under the circumstances."
Eustace's heart almost stopped beating, he was so surprised; he could not speak a word.
"Of course that chap coming the night before put you all on edge," proceeded Bob, "and you were flurried by the first shot. That might have been a nasty business too. Glad you didn't hurt yourself."