"Yes, thanks to G.o.d and to your bravery," answered Fraser with deep emotion; "but don't speak any more just now, there's a good fellow. The brute has ripped the left side of your face open from the top of your head to the chin, and we are trying to put in some st.i.tches."

"All right," was the cheerful, but faint response; "but tell me--is my eye gone?"

"No, boss," said Trouton quickly, "your eye is all right, but the eyebrow is mauled pretty badly, and was hanging over it, but we've got it back again now, and tied it up in place. Here, boss, take a sup o'

this," and he placed a brandy flask to Gerrard's lips. The liquor stung his lacerated lips like fire, but it revived him.

"Where is Miss Fraser?" he then asked.

"Here, beside you, dear Mr Gerrard," said the girl brokenly, as she pressed his hand, and turned her face away in blinding tears.

"Narrow squeak for both of us, wasn't it?"

"Yes, but please do not try to talk, dear Mr Gerrard."

"Oh, I'm all right, and must gabble a bit, now I know that I haven't lost an eye. You see, Fraser, the beast, although he was only a little fellow----"

"Eight feet he were, boss," interrupted Trouton, "but a young 'un, as you say."

"Well, just after I collared him, he swung his head about and hit me such a tremendous smack on the side of my brain-box that it stunned me.

But I didn't let go, did I?"

"No," replied Fraser, "you held on like grim death. I settled the brute by putting five bullets into it."

"There was two 'o 'em, boss," said Trouton, "the one as collared Miss Kate's horse, and the one as you tackled."

"Did Cato get away?" Gerrard asked quickly.

"Yes, yes, he got away," said Kate hurriedly, trying to speak calmly, though the poor colt, which had managed to struggle to the bank with a lacerated and broken leg, was then lying dead with a bullet through its head. Trouton had put it out of its misery.

There was no more mustering that day, for Gerrard's condition was so serious, though he tried to make light of it, that Fraser, leaving the cattle to the care of the two stockmen, first sent off Trouton to Boorala for a doctor, and then he, taking one of the pack-horses, made Gerrard mount his own.

"We'll be at Kaburie as soon as the little German doctor is there," he said, as he, Gerrard, and Kate started.

And when they reached Kaburie they found Doctor Krause, a quiet, spectacled little man, awaiting them with Knowles the overseer.

"Will he lose his eye, Krause?" asked Fraser, after the doctor had attended to Gerrard, and he with Kate met him in the dining-room.

"No, but his face is very much cut about, and the poor fellow may be disfigured for life."

Kate turned away with a bursting heart, and went to her room.

CHAPTER XV

"Poor, dear, old Tommy boy!" said Westonley to his wife, as they sat at their breakfast table some weeks after the mishap to Gerrard. The mail had just arrived at Marumbah, and brought a letter from his brother-in-law, and one from Fraser, His eyes glistened as he laid them down upon the table, and looked at his wife, who, he could see, was also visibly affected, whilst little Mary sobbed unrestrainedly.

"I wish this Mr Fraser had telegraphed to us, Edward. I would have left Marumbah the same day, and gone to poor Tom to nurse him."

"Would you, old girl?" and the big man rose from his seat and kissed her, his thick, heavy beard spreading out over her shoulders.

"Indeed, I would. And now it is no use my going, is it?"

"Not a bit, Lizzie. You hear what Fraser says--'He is getting on splendidly, and the left eye is saved.' Let me read it all over again; shall I?"

"Do," and her pale, clear-cut features flushed; "it makes me feel as if I were there and saw the whole dreadful sight. Don't cry any more, Mary dear. Uncle Tom is getting better."

"If Jim had been with him, it wouldn't have happened," said the child, suppressing her sobs, and wiping her streaming eyes; "Jim would have been sure to have seen the alligator coming before any one else, and done something. I am quite sure that even if he met a bunyip he would not be afraid; but would fight it."

"I'm dead certain of it, Mary," said Westonley, as he put his big hand upon the child's head, and then taking up Fraser's letter, he again read it aloud. It described in simple language Gerrard's desperate struggle with the alligator, then went on about his courage and fort.i.tude under agonising pain, for the wounds caused by alligators' claws invariably set up an intense and poisonous inflammation, and take a long time to heal, and concluded by saying, "as long as life lasts, I shall never forget that only for his heroic conduct I should now be a childless man, and my daughter have died a death too fearful to contemplate."

Gerrard's letter was in his usual laconic style.

"Dear Ted,--I have bought a little station here called Kaburie--good cattle country with about 2500 head on it. In getting a mob across a creek I was mauled by an alligator'

and if it had not been for my friend Fraser--in whose house I am now staying for a week or so--shooting the beast, it would have had me. It is nothing serious, so don't worry over me--some deep cuts on my face, that is all, and Mr Fraser and his daughter (a charming girl) are coddling me up. Jim is with me. I left him with your old friend Lacey at Port Denison, but the young beggar wouldn't stay when he heard that I had had an accident. He is making great running with pretty Miss Fraser. Give my love to Lizzie and Mary, and tell the latter that I trust her bear is now thoroughly convalescent Jim will write to Mary by next mail. He went out early this morning fishing with Miss F------, and did not know that the mailman was calling to-day.--Yours ever, Tom."

Mary's face brightened at the prospect of a letter from her dearly-beloved Jim, and Mrs Westonley smiled. Ever since Gerrard's visit to Marumbah Downs, her once icy and austere manner to the child had, bit by bit, relaxed, until at last she had thawed altogether, and had been amply repaid by such a warm response of affection that she now made a companion of the little one, and found herself a much happier woman now that the sweet sunlight of childish love had penetrated and melted her former frigid reserve. Westonley had noted the change with unalloyed delight, but, like a wise man, had pretended not to notice; but one day, soon after Gerrard's letter had arrived, he could not suppress himself.

He had been away on a business visit to his squatter neighbour Brooke, to whom he had sold his cattle station in Central Queensland at a very satisfactory figure, and as he rode up to the slip-rails of the home-paddock, he saw the one time "incubus" coming flying towards him, her sun-tanned face wreathed in smiles.

"Oh, Uncle Ted, Uncle Ted!" she panted, as she took down the slip-rails, and let Westonley pa.s.s through, "just fancy, Uncle Ted!"--and as she spoke, she lifted the slip-rails in place again and turned to him with a beaming face, out of breath, and so wildly excited that she could scarcely speak.

"What is the matter, young 'un?" and the big man bent down and swooped her up into the saddle in front of him.

"Oh, Uncle Ted, this is the very, very first time in my life that I was glad you were away!"

"How's that?"

"Aunt Lizzie let me sleep with her last NIGHT."

A great joy came into Westonley's heart. "Did she? Really and truly?"

"Really and truly! And oh, Uncle Ted, it was lovely! We talked and talked and talked for such a long time, and she told me such a lot of things about the school she was at in England, and about the girls there--some were very nice, but there were some horrid ones. Oh, she told me heaps of things. It was lovely, and we had Bunny in the room, too"--here she paused to catch her breath--"he tried to get in through the mosquito curtains, and got all tangled up, and tore a most enormous hole in them, and Aunt Lizzie only laughed, and said it didn't matter!"

"You _must_ have had a bully time."

"Splendid! And Aunt Lizzie and I are going to the beach together one day next week to get pippies, and she says she won't mind if she gets sopping wet right up to her face."

When they reached the house they found Mrs Westonley awaiting them on the verandah, and when her husband put his arms around her and kissed her repeatedly, she blushed like a young girl. And as the days went on he saw with delight that she had at last taken the child to her heart.

Breakfast was over, and Westonley in his study was talking to his head stockman when he saw Brooke riding up.

"Lizzie," he called to his wife, "here is Brooke. I expect he will have some breakfast, so tell Mrs Patton."

Brooke, a tall, powerfully-built man, and usually as boisterous as a school-boy in his manner, seemed very quiet as he dismounted, shook hands with Westonley and his wife, and patted Mary's head.

"Just in time for breakfast, Mr Brooke."