Page 61 - A Little Bush Maid

"Norah gave only one look. Then she slipped off Bobs and left him to look
after himself, and she tore down into the gully."

"Oh, Jim, go on!" said Wally.

"T’m going," said Jim affably.

"Dad gave one shout as Norah disappeared into the gully. ’Go back, my
darling!’ he yelled, forgetting that he was so far off that he might as well

have shouted to the moon. Then he gave a groan, and dug his spurs into
Bosun. T had mine as far as they’d go in Sirdar already!

"The smoke rolled on up the gully and in a minute it had covered it all up. T
thought it was all up with Norah, too, and old Burrows behind me was

sobbing for all he was worth. We raced and tore and yelled!

"Then we saw a sheep coming up out of the smoke at the end of the gully.

Another followed, and another, and then more, until every blessed one of
the twenty was there (though we didn’t stop to count ’em then, T can tell

you!) Last of all—it just seemed years--came Norah!

"We could hear her shouting at the sheep before we saw her. They were

terribly hard to move. She banged them with sticks, and the last old ram she
fairly kicked up the hill. They were just out of the gully when the fire

roared up it, and a minute or so after that we got to her.

"Poor little kid; she was just black, and nearly blind with the smoke. Tt was

making her cry like fun," said Jim, quite unconscious of his inappropriate
simile. "T don’t know if it was smoke in his case, but so was Dad. We put

the fire out quick enough; it was easy work to keep it in the gully. Tndeed,
Dad never looked at the fire, or the sheep either. He just jumped off Bosun,
and picked Norah up and held her as if she was a baby, and she hugged and

hugged him. They’re awfully fond of each other, Dad and Norah."

"And were the sheep all right?" Harry asked.