tooped over the black hound and raised her bodily in his arms
with great care, and much as a German nurse carries a baby. In this
position, and stopping occasionally for short rests, Bill carried
Jess the whole way back to the camp, a distance of about three and
a half miles. (The course taken by the kangaroo had been a curve
which ended rather nearer to the gunyah than it began.) Finn
followed, twenty paces behind the man, with head and tail carried
low. He was conscious that Jess was sorely smitten.

Arrived at the camp, Bill made a bed of leaves for Jess beside the
gunyah, and placed her down upon it very gently, with an old
blanket of his own folded round her body in such a way that she
could not reach the wound with her mouth. Then he mounted the horse
which he had driven before him, and galloped back to the blind
gully armed with a small coil of line.

When Bill returned with the old-man lashed on his horse's back, he
found Finn affectionately licking the black hound's muzzle. Jess
had not moved an inch.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI

THREE DINGOES WENT A-WALKING

Wallaby Bill showed himself a kind and shrewd nurse where Jess, his
one intimate friend, was concerned. He had no milk to give the
sorely wounded hound, but the thin broth he made for her that
Sunday night formed almost as suitable a food for her; and before
leaving her for the night the man was very careful to see that her
lacerated body was well covered. For her part, Jess was too weak
and ill to be likely to interfere with the wound; even the slight
lifting of her head to lap a little broth seemed to tax her
strength to the utmost. All night Finn lay within a couple of yards
of the kangaroo-hound; and in the morning, soon after dawn, he
brought her a fresh-killed rabbit and laid it at her feet. Finn
meant well, but Jess did not even lick the kill, and as soon as
Bill appeared he looked in a friendly way at Finn, and then removed
the rabbit. But he afterwards skinned and boiled it for Finn's own
delectation, and at the time he said--

"You're a mighty good sort, Wolf, and you can say I said so."

After making the black hound as comfortable as he could, Bill rode
off for his day's work. He had rigged a good shelter over Jess with
the help of a couple of sheets of stringy-bark and a few stakes. He
gave her a breakfast of broth, and left a dish of water within an
inch of her nose, where she could reach it without moving her body.
Lastly,