“Home—and get those boots off as quickly as you can.”
“But it’s doing so little, Robin. Can’t I go on somewhere else?”
“There won’t be any need,” Robin said—“unless, of course, Mr. Merritt and the boys are away. But they won’t be: they’ll be milking. Oh, and tell them I’ll be over to give the girls a hand with the cows in the morning after the boys have gone. They will send word on everywhere—one place passes it to another, in a case like this.” She looked at the boy’s dead-beat face, and patted his shoulder. “You needn’t worry, Barry, old chap. They’ll all know you’ve done your bit.”
“I?” said Barry. “I haven’t done anything.” He turned to go. “You won’t be long, Robin?”
“I expect to come straight home from O’Rourke’s,” she said. “Don’t hurry too much—there’s plenty of time to get things ready by daylight.”
But the men of the district did not wait for daylight. It was not long after midnight when the first relay of twenty men set out—men who had no cows to milk, or having cows, had wives and children who could milk them. They carried food and the drugs that Dr. Lane had ordered, and they went on horses, so far as horses could be forced through the scrub. They were men who knew the track to the Falls—knew that it was not necessary to wade the creek as the Lanes and Robin had done. They left their horses when the going became impossible, and pushed onward on foot, making the way clearer for those who should follow: the sound of their axes echoed through the quiet night, and their hurricane lamps sent weird shafts of dim radiance to startle the furry folk of the bush, who only move after day has gone. It was scarcely dawn when old David Merritt halted them.
“We’re not more than a quarter of a mile from the Falls,” he said. “Eight of us’ll go forrard now: you other chaps stay here and get your breath. We’ll want all the breath you’ve got, I reckon.”
Back at the settlement, riders had gone to and fro all night, and men had climbed where there was no footing for a horse in the darkness: and always when the message was given men made haste to pass it on, and women packed food swiftly, catching their breath to think of the woman who had fought for her man’s life in the awful loneliness of the wild bush. From the little towns the lights of cars and buggies gleamed in a long, broken procession, toiling up the hill tracks with men, and yet more men. Hill Farm was the central point: the cars and buggies and horsemen turned in at its gate unendingly, until the little flat below the house was black with vehicles. All night the house was a lit hive of humming activity. Robin and Barry slept the dreamless sleep of worn-out children on the veranda, heedless of the passing feet; but in the kitchen Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Lane, with other women, gave out great mugs of tea and parcels of food, and the men ate and drank swiftly before flinging off their coats and following the figures that streamed, ant-like, into the silent hills. There were none left when dawn had come. Even the men who had cows had yarded them at two o’clock in the morning, and, their milking done, were on their way before the sun turned the eastern tree-tops to copper and scarlet.
The first men who carried the stretchers did not last a quarter of a mile—old David Merritt’s estimate had been over-sanguine. Two hundred yards was enough, and more than enough, for the strongest man in that terrible descent through the bush, with the dead weight of a helpless burden: feeling with every step for roots and stumps in the track, bending to avoid the clutching branches, bracing each muscle suddenly to avoid shock for the silent forms they carried, when a sudden drop in the slippery path flung them forward. They fell, more than once: it was beyond human power always to retain footing under their loads. But even when they fell they did not try to save themselves—only to ease the fall for the stretchers. And one burden knew nothing, wrapped in a heavy, drugged sleep: and to the other, neither falls, nor weariness, nor hunger mattered any more.
“Both all right?” had been the eager question when the second relay had hurried up in response to a whistle. David Merritt’s headshake had been answer.