. He'll come in the morning
likely."

This seemed to satisfy every one save Billjim. She turned to Frenchy,
and said:

"Do you know whereabouts Jack was working lately?"

"Yes," answered Frenchy. "He was working at the two mile, day before
yesterday, so I suppose he's there yet."

"Yes," said Billjim, "I suppose he will be." But Billjim wasn't
satisfied. When every one was asleep she was out, and knowing the scrub
thoroughly, was over to Jack's camp in a quarter of an hour. Not finding
Jack there, she made for the two mile with all speed, for something told
her she knew not what. An undefinable feeling that something was wrong
came across her. She saw Jack lying crushed and bleeding and no one
there to help him! Do what she would, dry, choking sobs burst from her
tight-closed lips as she scrambled along over boulders and through the
thick scrub. Brambles, wait-a-bit vines, and berry bushes scratched and
stung her, and switched across her face, leaving bleeding and livid
marks on her tender skin. But she pushed on and on in the fitful
moonlight through the dense undergrowth, making a straight line for the
two mile.

Arrived there, she stopped for breath for a while, and then sent forth a
long "Coo-ie." No answer. "I was right," thought Billjim, "he is hurt.
My God! he may be dead out here, while we were there chatting and
laughing as usual. Oh, Jack, Jack!"

Up the gully she sped, from one abandoned working to another, over
rocks and stones, into water-holes, with no thought for herself. At
last, there, huddled up against the bank, with a huge boulder pinning
one leg to the ground, lay poor Jack L'Estrange.

Billjim's first impression was that he was dead, he looked so limp and
white out in the open there with the moon shining on his face, but when
her accustomed courage returned she stooped over him and found him
alive, but unconscious.

She bathed his temples with water, murmuring:

"Jack dear, wake up. Oh, my own lad, wake up and tell me what to do."

Jack opened his eyes at last, as if her soft crooning had reached his
numbed senses.

"Halloa, Billjim," he said faintly. "Is that you or a dream?"

"It's me, Jack," replied Billjim, flinging school talk to the four
winds. "It's me. What can I do? How can I help? Are you suffering much?"

"Well," said Jack, "you can't shift that boulder, that's certain, for
I've tried until I went off. It's not paining now much, seems numbed. Do
you think you could fetch