"I am glad to see you too," said Mollie. "I am lost."
"Lost!" exclaimed the young man. "Oh no, you aren't. I have a compass, and it is not more than a couple of miles or so to Silver Fields, von Greusen's place. I'll show you how to use a compass, and you will be my good angel and go to Silver Fields and ask them to send a horse along, and I will be grateful to you for ever."
"I know how to use a compass, thank you," said Mollie, feeling greatly relieved, "and I will go to Mr. von Greusen's place if you tell me where it is; but first I will bandage up your foot and make it feel easier. I have learnt First Aid. May I take that thing off your hat for a bandage?"—as she noticed the pith helmet and pugaree lying on the ground.
"My pugaree? Good idea! I don't know what First Aid is precisely, but it sounds appropriate. Do you mean you can fix a bandage?"
"Rather," said Mollie, comfortably conscious that she was a First-class Guide and a bright and shining light in this particular line. "How did you sprain your ankle? I suppose you—" she stopped short. She had almost said that she supposed he had tripped over an obstacle in a fit of loverishness. "I suppose your foot just went. That's what mine did."
"I caught it in a rabbit-hole," he answered, "the floor of Australia seems to be perforated with them. Why didn't you coo-ee sooner?"
"I did," Mollie answered, as she unwound the pugaree and took off her patient's sock, "I coo-eed ever so often—oh, dear me! that is a bad foot! I'm afraid you'll be laid up for ever so long. Why didn't you coo-ee?"
"I did," answered Mr. Smith, eyeing the badly swollen and discoloured ankle ruefully. "I coo-eed ever so often too. I suppose we mistook each other for magpies. Next time I'll try a good English shout. Now, what's to happen? D'ye mean to say that I'm to be stuck up in Silver Fields for goodness knows how long with only my own thoughts for company and nothing to do? Oh, ye gods and little fishes!" he groaned disconsolately.
"I'm afraid so," Mollie replied sympathetically. "I sprained my ankle—" she was going to say "the other day" but remembered in time—"once in the holidays, and I had to lie on a sofa all day. It wasn't nearly so dull as I expected though," she ended with a little laugh. As they talked she had been skilfully bandaging the swollen ankle in her best style, which was a style not to be despised by anybody. "Now," she said, as she tucked in the end and fastened it firmly with her Tenderfoot brooch, "now you will be more comfortable. But you must keep quite still. I do wish you were not so far from home; you should not ride. If you do anything foolish now you may be lame all your life; that's what the doctor told me; he was most frightfully firm about it. Your wrist is bleeding—you have cut it."
The young man turned back his shirt sleeve. "It is nothing. A handkerchief twisted round will do. You have done the bandage beautifully."