label, placing it with a firm light touch on the wound.

"While I hold this, cut the trouser leg right down," she said, and
Harding, his own nerves steadied by the calmness of hers, did as she
bid.

The trooper came over with the rest of the articles, and while she
watched what Harding was doing she told him, quietly, how to prepare a
lotion and bring it to her.

Gale came over as soon as he had secured his horses.

"Will you go down to the men's huts and see if there is a bunk where we
can put him?" she said, looking quickly at Gale.

"Why didn't you think of that?" Gale exclaimed as he glanced at the
trooper. "You ought to have taken them there at once."

"You had better go too," she added to the trooper. "Bring something back
with you, a door or a table or anything that will do to carry him on."

Left alone with Harding, she never ceased until she had the wound
stanched, cleansed, and properly bound up.

"There is brandy in that flask, Fred. Mix about a tablespoonful in three
times as much water."

He brought her the stuff in a pannikin, believing it was for herself.

"Raise his head gently," she said, and slowly poured the mixture between
the old man's nerveless lips.

Without a pause she turned to Durham and had the ugly wound on his scalp
laid bare. Snipping the hair away from it, she lightly touched the
bruised skin surrounding the jagged cut.

"I'm afraid the skull is fractured--I hope the doctor will soon be
here," she whispered, as she busied herself with the cotton-wool and
red-labelled bottle.

By the time she had Durham's head bandaged, Gale and the trooper
returned, carrying the door from one of the huts.

"There are two huts with a single bunk in each, and one with four," Gale
said.

"Use the two with the single bunks," she said. "When are the others
coming from the township?"

"They're coming along the road now," the trooper answered.

"Run and see if they have any blankets with them. If not, send someone
back at once for some."

But there was more than blankets in the buggy that came up at breakneck
speed. By the veriest chance the doctor had been within a mile or so of
Waroona and had come away at once, bringing with him such articles as he
knew would be wanted. He hastened over to the two wounded men just as
Dudgeon gave utterance to the first sound he had made since the troopers
had dragged him out of the burning homestead.

The doctor bent over him, rapidly examining the ba