He seemed much greyer now, but still stood square and straight. And his eyes still looked one through.
When Peter came out and the crowd had cleared away he took Jack aside and spoke to him in a low voice for a few minutes. I heard Jack say, “Oh, that’s all right, Peter! You have my word for it,” and he got on his horse. I heard Peter say the one word, “Remember!” “Oh, that’s all right,” said Jack, and he shook hands with Peter, shouted, “Come on, Joe!” and started off with the packhorse after him.
“I wish I were going down with you, Joe,” said Peter to me, “but I can’t get away till to-morrow. I’ve got that sick rouseabout on my hands, and I’ll have to see him fixed up somehow and started off to the hospital” (the nearest was a hundred miles away). “And, by the way, I’ve taken up a collection for him; I want a few shillings from you, Joe. I nearly forgot you. The poor fellow only got in about a fortnight’s work, and there’s a wife and youngsters in Sydney. I’ll be down after you to-morrow. I promised to go to Comesomehow[[1]] and get the people together and start an agitation for a half-time school there. Anyway, I’ll be there by the end of the week. Good-bye, Joe. I must get some more money for the rouser from some of those chaps before they start.”
[1] There is a postal district in new South Wales called “Come-by-Chance.”
Comesomehow was a wretched cockatoo settlement, a bit off the track, about one hundred and fifty miles on our road home, where the settlers lived like savages and the children ran wild. I reckoned that Peter would have his work cut out to start a craving for education in that place.
By saying he’d be there I think he intended to give me a hint, in case anything happened. I believe now that Jack’s wife had got anxious and had written to him.
We jogged along comfortably and happily for three or four days, and as we passed shanty after shanty, and town after town, without Jack showing the slightest inclination to pull up at any of them, I began to feel safe about him.
Then it happened, in the simplest way, as most things of this sort happen if you don’t watch close.
The third night it rained, rained heavens-hard, and rainy nights can be mighty cold out on those plains, even in midsummer. Jack and I rigged up a strip of waterproof stuff we had to cover the swags on the packhorse, but the rain drove in, almost horizontally, and we got wet through, blankets, clothes and all. Jack got a bad cold and coughed fit to break himself; so about daylight, when the rain held up a bit, we packed up and rode on to the next pub, a wretched little weather-board place in the scrub.
Jack reckoned he’d get some stuff for his cold there. I didn’t like to speak, but before we reached the place I said, “You won’t touch a drink, Jack.”