The boy caught at the little bottle. Then he saw Brownie’s distressed face, and gave them to her.
“You get ’em ready,” he said, briefly. “I’ll go on sucking for a moment. Hurry the men, Norah!”
Almost by the time the permanganate crystals were worked into a paste and rubbed into the cut about the punctures, the horses were in the stable yard. Every man on Billabong liked the merry Queensland boy—there were willing hands at every buckle of the harness that was flung upon the brown cobs in breathless haste. The dog-cart, with Murty O’Toole on the box, clattered to the front of the house—to the little group that had been so merry when the shadow of death had suddenly fell upon it.
Wally’s face was a little strained. The tightness of the ligature was telling upon him, more than the snake bite itself. But he grinned up at Murty in his old way.
“I’m giving you plenty of trouble, Murty,” he said. “Silly ass, to go patting a snake at my time of life!”
“Begob, it might happen to the owldest of us,” said Murty, consolingly. “Ye have that bandage tied tight, Mr. Jim?”
“He has that!” said Wally, ruefully. “Don’t you worry about Jim when it comes to tying a ligature. My hand will drop off soon, I should say!”
“Y’can have it loosened just f’r a minute, presently,” said Murty. “Whin it’s been on half an hour it’s due f’r a spell. Begob, I’ll bet it hurts y’, me boy!”
“Oh—some,” said Wally, briefly. He glanced at his hand, swollen and purple under the bandage Brownie had wrapped about the part that had been bitten. “Pretty looking object, isn’t it? Well, I do think I was a chump! That beggar must have been lying along the rail for ever so long!”
“Y’ had no business to go killin’ it before ye attinded to y’r hand,” said Murty. “Much better have let him get away on us than wait. Never mind, there ain’t much time lost, an’ y’r as healthy as a rabbit. We’ll have y’ right as rain in no time.”