"He never wanted any one but me about
him," and the unspoken request was understood. He was his mate, and no
one but himself must render the last services.
Dry-eyed and worn, the man moved about, doing all that should be done,
the bushmen only helping where they dared; then shouldering a pick and
shovel, he went to the tattle rise beyond the slip rails, and set doggedly
to work at a little distance from two lonely graves already there.
Doggedly he worked on; but, as he worked, gradually his burden lost its
overwhelming weight, for the greater part of it had somehow skipped on to
the Dandy's shoulders--those brave, unflinching shoulders, that carried
other men's burdens so naturally and so willingly that their burdens
always seemed the Dandy's own. The Dandy may have had that power of
finding "something decent" in every one he met, but in the Dandy all men
found the help they needed most.
Quietly and unassumingly, the Dandy put all in order and then, soon after
midday, with brilliant sunshine all about us, we stood by an open grave
in the shade of the drooping glory of a crimson flowering bauhenia.
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