brandy's done pour whisky, then gin--keep the rum till the
last' (the doctor had put a supply of spirits in the waggonette at
Poisonous Jimmy's). 'I'll take Mac.'s horse and ride on and send Peter'
(the station hand) 'back to the hut to meet you. I'll be back myself if
I can. THIS BUSINESS WILL HURRY UP THINGS AT THE STATION.'

Which last was one of those apparently insane remarks of the doctor's
which no sane nor sober man could fathom or see a reason for--except in
Doc. Wild's madness.

He rode off at a gallop. The burden of Job's raving, all the way, rested
on the dead filly--

'Stop her! She must not go home to Gerty!... God help me shoot!...
Whoa!--whoa, there!... "Cope--cope--cope"--Steady, Jessie, old girl....
Aim straight--aim straight! Aim for me, God!--I've missed!... Stop her!'
&c.

'I never met a character like that,' commented the doctor afterwards,
'inside a man that looked like Job on the outside. I've met men behind
revolvers and big mustarshes in Califo'nia; but I've met a derned sight
more men behind nothing but a good-natured grin, here in Australia.
These lanky sawney Bushmen will do things in an easy-going way some day
that'll make the old world sit up and think hard.'

He reached the station in time, and twenty minutes or half an hour
later he left the case in the hands of the Lancashire woman--whom he saw
reason to admire--and rode back to the hut to help Job, whom they soon
fixed up as comfortably as possible.

They humbugged Mrs Falconer first with a yarn of Job's alleged
phenomenal shyness, and gradually, as she grew stronger, and the truth
less important, they told it to her. And so, instead of Job being
pushed, scarlet-faced, into the bedroom to see his first-born, Gerty
Falconer herself took the child down to the hut, and so presented Uncle
Job with my first and favourite cousin and Bush chum.

Doc. Wild stayed round until he saw Job comfortably moved to the
homestead, then he prepared to depart.

'I'm sorry,' said Job, who was still weak--'I'm sorry for that there
filly. I was breaking her in to side-saddle for Gerty when she should
get about. I wouldn't have lost her for twenty quid.'

'Never mind, Job,' said the doctor. 'I, too, once shot an animal I was
fond of--and for the sake of a woman--but that animal walked on two legs
and wore trousers. Good-bye, Job.'

And he left for Poisonous Jimmy's.

The Little World Left Behind.

I lately revisited a western agricultur