drink if you can help it. One drink--the first
drink will do it. I want you to promise me that you will never have a
drink with Jack, no matter what happens or what he says."

"I never will," I said, and I meant it.

"It's the first time he's been away from me since he gave up drinking,
and if he comes back all right this time I will be sure of him and
contented. But, Joe, if he comes back wrong it will kill me; it will
break my heart. I want you to promise that if anything happens you will
ride or wire for Peter M'Laughlan. I hear he's wool-sorting this year at
Beenaway Station. Promise me that if anything happens you will ride for
Peter M'Laughlan and tell him, no matter what Jack says."

"I promise," I said.

She half-held out her hand to me, but I kept both mine behind my back.
I suppose she thought I didn't notice that she wanted to shake hands on
the bargain; but the truth was that my hands shook so, and I didn't want
her to notice _that_.

I got on my horse and felt steadier. Then, "Good-bye, Clara"--"Good-bye,
Jack." She bore up bravely, but I saw her eyes brimming. Jack got on
his horse, and I bent over and shook hands with her. Jack bent down and
kissed her while she stood on tiptoe. "Good-bye, little woman," he said.
"Cheer up, and I'll be back before you know where you are! You mustn't
fret--you know why."

"Good-bye, Jack!"--she was breaking down.

"Come on, Jack!" I said, and we rode off, turning and waving our hats
to her as she stood by the gate, looking a desolate little thing, I
thought, till we turned down a bend of the road into the river.

As we jogged along with the packhorse trotting behind us, and the
quart-pots and hobble-chains jingling on the packsaddle, I pictured
Clara running inside, to cry a while in her sister's arms, and then
to bustle round and cheer up, for Jack's sake--and for the sake of
something else.

"I'll christen him after you, Joe," said Jack, later on, when we'd got
confidential over our pipes after tea in our first camp. It never seemed
to enter his head that there was the ghost of a chance that it might be
a girl. "I'm glad he didn't come along when I was drinking," he said.

And as we lay rolled in our blankets under the stars I swore a big oath
to myself.

We got along comfortably and reached Beenaway Station in about a week,
the day before the shearers' roll-call. Jack never showed the slightest
inclination to go into a shanty; and several times we talked