Mark smiled feebly, and Dan shrank away to the side of Buck.
“I didn’t do much good, messmate,” he said, “but it’s wonderful how he’s kept up. It’s my belief, and I says it ’cause I know, and no one better, what it was to be as weak as a cat and as sick as a dog after my fever—it’s these ’ere plains as does it. Soon as I had started up country I began to grow. One day I was like a little kid—just a baby, you know. Next day I was a toddler just beginning to walk. Next day I was a little boy as could run; and so I went on breathing and growing till—you know what I was like, feeling as if I was alive again, and I was a man ready and willing for aught.”
Buck grunted and frowned at the ruins they were approaching.
“What’s the matter, messmate? Cheer up, can’t you!”
“Can’t, Dan. I’m a-thinking of my two span of bullocks.”
“Oh, they’ll be all right.”
“Not they, Dan. I know what these blacks are. They will have sat down for one of their great big gorges. But if they have eaten six-and-forty of my bullocks I’ll never forgive them—there!”
“Well, we shall soon see, messmate.”
“I’m afraid, my lad, as we shan’t see.”
“Well, but I didn’t finish,” said Dan. “I was talking about Mr Mark. The way in which he has pulled up has been just like me, and he’d be just wonderful only he’s so low-sperrited about his governor—and no wonder. Young Mr Dean too’s just as bad, and he arn’t got the pluck left in him to do his cousin no good. Heave to alongside of him and say a word or two.”