"Put the horses up in the shed—leave the saddles on," she said quickly. "You go back, tell boss—cows all right—Davey very sick man, here."
Although an hour earlier nothing would have induced the boy to brave the darkness alone, it was not many moments before he was up on his weedy, half-wild nag and streaking away towards the cover of the trees and the threadlike track which wound uphill along the spur.
Deirdre opened the door of the hut. Davey took a step or two into it and fell forward. She set the brushwood on the hearth alight, and threw some broken branches over it to make a blaze. There was no stir in Davey when she knelt beside him, and a pool of blood lay on the floor where he had fallen.
She ran out of doors for water. In the semi-darkness of the hut it was difficult to find anything to put water in, but there was a pannikin near the water barrel and she filled that and tore pieces of calico from her petticoat to bathe his wound.
Groping along the shelves near the fireplace she found the end of a thick rush and tallow candle. She did not light it at first because the fire had sprung up and was lighting the room, showing its meagre equipment, the branding irons and a saddle flung down in a corner, a bunk against the wall with a couple of sheepskins over it, a table with two or three pannikins and a black bottle on it. There was a drain of some spirit in the bottle. She poured it carefully into a pannikin and held it to Davey's lips.
His immobility frightened her. She lit the candle and held it close to his face. Under the leaping yellow flames it had the mask-like stillness and pallor of death.
"Davey! Davey!" she screamed with terror, creeping up beside his heavy, still body.
"Oh, you mustn't die, Davey—you mustn't!" Even as she sobbed she thought he was dead.
She put the spirit on his lips again.
"Oh, I've done all that I can—all that I know to do. Won't you look at me, Davey? My heart's breaking. You've not gone, Davey? You wouldn't leave me. It's me, Deirdre, your sweetheart, that's with you! Won't you look at me?... Won't you open your eyes? I can't bear it—if you don't speak to me."