CHAPTER XVI
Within a week we returned to the homestead, and for twenty-four hours
Cheon gloated over us, preparing every delicacy that appealed to him as
an antidote to an outbush course of beef and damper. Then a man rode
into our lives who was to teach us the depth and breadth of the meaning
of the word mate--a sturdy, thick-set man with haggard, tired eyes and
deep lines about his firm strong mouth that told of recent and prolonged
tension.
"Me mate's sick; got a touch of fever," he said simply dismounting near
the verandah. "I've left him camped back there at the Warlochs"; and as
the Maluka prepared remedies--making up the famous Gulf mixture--the man
with grateful thanks, found room in his pockets and saddle-pouch for
eggs, milk, and brandy, confident that "these'll soon put him right,"
adding, with the tense lines deepening about his mouth as he touched on
what had brought them there: "He's been real bad, ma'am. I've had a bit
of a job to get him as far as this." In the days to come we were to
learn, little by little, that the "bit of a job" had meant keeping a sick
man in his saddle for the greater part of the fifty-mile dry stage, with
forty miles of "bad going" on top of that, and fighting for him every
inch of the way that terrible symptom of malaria--that longing to "chuck
it," and lie down and die.
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