A white blur in a deep gully caught Jean’s eye as they rode, and she called to Mr. Linton.
“Is that a bullock lying down?”
“Good girl!” said her host, approvingly. “Yes, it’s a beast down, and I should say he can’t get up. Perhaps you’d better not come down, lassie; just keep straight along this ridge, and I’ll catch you up presently.” He turned his big black’s head down into the gully.
It was ten minutes before he rejoined her—by which time Jean had come to a standstill, partly because she was uncertain as to which way to go, and partly because of a queer sound that might have been a stock-whip crack, but sounded somehow different. She looked inquiringly at Mr. Linton as he rode up. His face was grave and angry.
“Poor brute! I had to put him out of his misery,” he said. “He’d been caught in a little landslip and fallen, and his leg was broken. Come on, Jean, we’re not far from the slip-rails, and the others will be waiting.”
Norah and Jim and Wally were sitting on a log near the rails, letting their horses have a mouthful of grass. They mounted as the late-comers rode up.
“We didn’t find a hoof,” Jim said. A glance at his father’s face had told him that something was wrong, and he brought Garryowen beside Monarch as they rode into the next paddock, over the rails that Harvey had flung down the day before. “Did I hear a shot?” he asked, dropping his voice.
Mr. Linton nodded.
“Yes,” he said, curtly. “A beast down in a gully—leg broken. I was very glad I’d brought my revolver; it’s always best to bring it in country like this, when you never know if it will be necessary to put an injured beast out of pain. The sickening part of it is, that the job should have been done a week ago.”
“A week!” Jim whistled.