“Oh, I guess so,” said Wally. Then Jim came plunging out, Norah and Jean at his heels.
“Here’s your hat, old man,” Jim said, clapping it on its owner’s head. “The girls are coming in with us. Hurry along—we don’t want to lose any time.” He made as though to help his chum into the dog-cart, and Wally grinned at him.
“What are you after?” he asked, swinging himself up with one hand. “I’m not a dead man yet. Come on, you old nursemaid!” He waved his hat cheerily to Brownie, whose kind old face was working with anxiety. “Don’t go worrying, Brownie—I’ll be back for tea! May I have pikelets if I’m a good boy?”
“You’ll have everything I can make for you,” said poor Brownie, tears in her eyes as she looked at the merry, defiant face. “Only come back all right, my dear!” Murty gave the cobs their heads, and they shot down the drive. It was but fifteen minutes from the moment Wally had put his hand on the black intruder lying along the railing of the trellis.
A man was waiting at each gate; there was no delay of opening and shutting. Murty swung the horses through the narrow openings, shaving gateposts by a hair’s breadth, but never slackening speed. Out on the road, the brown cobs felt the unaccustomed indignity of the whip on their backs, and resented it by trying to bolt; but the hand on their mouths was rigid, and they came back from a gallop to a flying trot, that spun over the long miles to Cunjee. The shining tyres flashed in the sunlight. Now and then sparks flew from flints hard smitten by the racing, iron-shod hoofs.
Wally kept up a plucky attempt at chatter for awhile. Then he grew silent, nursing his swollen arm in a fruitless effort to relieve the agony caused by the checked circulation. Jim loosened the ligature momentarily, after a time, and the relief was great; but it had to be tightened again, and gradually the boy’s set lips grew white. Once he spoke, in a low voice.
“I say, old chap,” he said. “If things go wrong, you’ll let them know all about it up at home, won’t you? Tell ’em it was all my own stupidity.”
“You shut up,” returned Jim, gruffly. “Things aren’t going wrong—we’ve got you in loads of time.”
“Oh, I know. I’m not expecting them to,” Wally answered. “Still, there’s the chance. Don’t forget, old Stick-in-the-mud.” He pulled Norah’s hair gently, and demanded to know why she was so quiet. “Something unusual to have you civil for so long at a stretch!” he told her, laughing—to which Norah tried to make a cheerful retort, but choked instead, and averred that she had swallowed a fly.
“Hard lines on the fly!” said Wally. “See—there’s your father!”