chap watched him with wondering eyes, and commenced to make three-year-old remarks, such as 'Who's that, daddy? Pitty woman. Whoo's seepy, daddy,' and so on.
Jim Dennis brought water and moistened her lips. Then he stood watching her.
Sal slept right through the night, and when she came round in the morning she saw Jim Dennis before her with the child in his arms. She rubbed her eyes and looked at them. Then she explained what had happened, and Jim said, —
'You can stay here and look after the little chap. Will you?'
Her big brown eyes glistened, and, weak as she was she stretched out her hands for the child.
Jim put him down, and, after a moment's hesitation, he toddled towards her.
From that day, three years ago, black Sal had been devoted to the little boy. In her wild, half-tamed way she loved him more than anything on earth.
It was Sal who sat at the child's bedside when Jim Dennis rode out to Swamp Creek for Dr Tom. The woman watched every movement of the little face, every quiver of the body. Each moan from his lips pierced her like a knife. The child was not her own, and yet she loved him, and worshipped with a dog-like devotion the big man who was his father.
Sal would willingly have submitted to any torture could she by so doing have saved the child a moment's pain.
During the long weary hours when Jim Dennis was absent she felt as though something in her body must snap.
Then she heard, with her keen ears, the low, dull thud of the horses' hoofs, and she knew they were coming, and that help was at hand. She did not leave the bedside to look out, she would not have done that for worlds. When Dr Tom came into the room she gave a gasp, and watched him as he looked at the child. She saw hope in his face and caught his hand.
Dr Tom pressed it and said, —
'Come in, Jim, the little chap's alive. I'll pull him through. It's not so bad after all.'
All that night Dr Tom fought for the child's life, and the dark woman and Jim Dennis looked on in silent agony.
With the first streaks of dawn a change came over the child. It was as though the coming day had ushered in new life and hope.
For two days Dr Tom remained at Wanabeen, and at the end of that time the boy's life was out of danger.
The tension relapsed, Jim Dennis said, —
'I have a lot to thank you for, doctor. You have saved him, and he is dearer to me than my own life. I shall never forget it. There may come a time when I can be of service to you, and then you must not be afraid to ask what you will of Jim Dennis.'
Dr Tom was not a sentimental man, but even his hard, rough-used nature felt the delicacy of the situation.
'It has given me more pleasure to save that child's life than I ever experienced before. Jim Dennis, you're a brick.'
Jim smiled as he replied, 'Swamp Creek thinks I'm a shocking bad lot.'
'Then Swamp Creek can go to – '
'Hold hard, doc.'
'Let 'em say anything against you in my presence, that's all,' said Dr Tom.
'You are quite sure he is out of danger?' asked Jim.
'Certain. I'll leave all the necessary medicine and tell Sal what to do. She's like a mother to him.'
A dark cloud gathered on Jim Dennis's face, and Dr Tom saw it.
'Jim, my man, where is the lad's mother?'
'Wait and I'll tell you on – ' he hesitated.
'On! – when?' asked Dr Tom.
'Settling Day,' said Jim.
CHAPTER III
POTTER'S SHANTY
Dr Tom remained for three days at Wanabeen.
'If there's anyone ill they know where to find me,' he said.
'They'll never come to Wanabeen for you. There's a bad name about this place,' Jim replied.
'Who's given it?'
'The police, and well – you know – others.'
'Why?'
Jim Dennis shrugged his shoulders. It was an expressive gesture, it meant so much to a man who understood him.
'You are one of the old gang, they tell me, Jim – is that true?'
'What do you mean by the old gang?'
'One of the men who stuck the beggars all up at Potter's Shanty when the coach was stopped,' said Dr Tom.
'They say that – do they?'
'Yes.'
'Then let it rest. I was there that night.'
'Were you in it, Jim? – no halves.'
'No, doc, I was not in it in the sense you mean.'
'Who put it up?'
The question was a simple one, but Jim Dennis turned round like a lion at bay, and said, —
'You – you – dare ask me that?'
Dr Tom felt uncomfortable.
'I don't want you to give a pal away,' he said.
Jim Dennis strode over to him and took his arm. The pressure was painful and Dr Tom winced.
'This is not an amputation case,' he said.
Jim Dennis dropped his arm and said quietly, —
'Forgive me, doc; but don't you really know the fact of that matter?'
'No, on my honour.'
'Then I am the last man to tell you.'
Dr Tom sighed and glanced out of his eyes at Jim.
That 'sticking up' case at Potter's Shanty had puzzled more than one clever man.
Now the little chap has pulled through, and death is not knocking at his door, it may be as well to relate the incident.
Potter's Shanty was a public-house, a wayside hotel, a dispensary for every kind of infernal liquor, bad and indifferent – there was no good.
The mail coach stopped at Potter's, and it was reported to the police that sometimes the mails stopped there also. Potter's was a curious old place, and lay, or, to be more correct, tried to stand, between Swamp Creek and Wanabeen. Old Potter was a relic of bygone days. He had been mixed up with the Kelly gang over the border, and at various times a hospitable Government had entertained him without his sanction.
Old Potter was a trifle of a moralist in his way. He could neither read or write; so on one occasion when he was accused of forgery he brought forward unimpeachable evidence in his favour.
The Crown had produced a mass of evidence which proved up to the hilt that old Potter was an unmitigated thief, but the prosecution went too far, as prosecutions occasionally do, and proved too much. It was sworn on oath (Potter was particular about oaths) that old Samuel Potter had forged a signature to a bill.
'What's a bill?' asked Samuel.
The Court tittered. There were a few remarks made as to Samuel Potter's blissful ignorance.
'Do you mean to tell me you don't know what a bill is?' asked the Crown prosecutor.
'Well, that depends,' said Potter.
'What depends? Depends on what? Answer me that, sir!' thundered the irate man with the flowing wig.
'Well, it's this way, you see. If you stayed at my shanty and ran up a score, which you didn't pay, and I asked you for the amount, I'd call that a bill.'
The learned gentleman pulled his black cloak furiously and said, —
'If I owed you a bill I would pay it, provided you presented it in due form.'
'That's what I couldn't do, your worship,' said Potter.
'Why?' asked the judge.
'Because