y, Leather, the poor brute has been savagely kicked."

"It looks like it, sir," said the convict quietly.

"Why, so it do," chimed in Brookes, as he bent over the helpless sheep.

"Do you know anything of it, sir?" cried the doctor, eyeing the convict
keenly.

The man shook his head.

"It's very strange," said the doctor, looking at Brookes, who took off
his hat, scratched his head, and looked round at the convict, while Nic
glanced at Brookes's boots and then at the poor sandal-like shoes the
convict wore, which were evidently a piece of his own work.

"Like me to kill the poor thing out of its misery, sir," said Brookes,
"and take off its skin?"

"No," said the doctor shortly.

"Won't be nothin' the matter with the meat, sir."

"Nic," said his father, "jump on the horse and ride home. Ask your
mother to give you a roll of bandage, and bring it back here."

"Yes, father."

"Why, you ain't going to bind that 'ere leg up, are ver?" said Brookes.

"Will you be good enough not to interrupt?" said the doctor. "Here, hi,
Nic, my boy. Tell Samson to give you a sack and an axe. You can throw
the sack across the horse."

"Yes, father," cried the boy; and he cantered off, obtained the bandage
and sack, and was back in less than an hour, to find that Leather had,
under the doctor's directions, cut some pieces of wood from a tree, and
with these for splints the doctor cleverly bandaged the broken leg.

"There, Nic," he said, "I should not do that in a regular way, but this
is a very valuable sheep, brought out to me by one of the last ships.
Now one of you cut a good stout pole, say twelve feet long."

Brookes looked at Leather, who caught up the axe and ran off.

While he was gone the doctor opened a part of the bottom of the sack,
and cut four slits in the side; and this being done, Nic looked on in
surprise while the sack was drawn over the struggling sheep's head, its
head pulled out of the bottom, and the legs put through the four slits.

"Now gather the sack together so that the poor brute cannot struggle
out, Brookes," said the doctor; and this was easily effected, as the
animal was upon its side.

Then the doctor made holes and laced up the mouth of the sack securely,
all but a few inches; and by this time Leather was back with a stout,
neatly trimmed pole.

"Do you see what I mean?" said the doctor.

"Yes, sir," replied the convict, and he slipped the pole through the
sack above the sheep's bac