To the bullocks the open gate and the sun-dried plain beyond offered respite from the demons in the rear. They jostled each other through the opening, and lumbered away at full gallop, spreading out as they went.
“We’ve done it, Rex!” Billy gasped: “an’ I never thought we would. _They_ can’t be burnt anyhow.” His face was scarlet, and his hat was gone, but his eyes were dancing. He held the gate for Rex to pass through. “I say, do you think you can hurry home an’ take word to Father? I’m going back to help.”
“Rather. Some one ought to be there to help keep it off Emu Plains. You can get home all right, can’t you, Rex? Merrilegs will take you.”
“I can get home all right,” Rex said. “But you—will you be safe, Billy?”
“But you said they didn’t let you go to fires.”
“I’m letting myself go to this one,” Billy returned. “Think I’m going home now—to sit down an’ have tea? My word, no—I’m goin’ back with the men!”
“We can’t both go—some one must take word to Father. Oh, do go, Rex!” Billy begged.
“You haven’t even got your hat!” said poor Rex, in a final protest.
“I know where I dropped it—I’ll get it. Cut along, old chap!” He latched the gate as he spoke, and, swinging round, went off at a hard gallop, Punch’s little hoofs drumming over the baked ground. Rex looked after him enviously, feeling suddenly lonely. Then it came to him that after all he had a job of importance: was he not a despatch-rider? If you cannot be in the firing-line, it is at least something to bear despatches. The small boy cheered, and sent Merrilegs galloping for home.
It was a queer version of the usually spic-and-span Master Forester who came, a little later, on the tennis-party at home. Afternoon tea was in progress, and Jo was just handing her father a cup when the little boy came up the path. He was still scarlet-faced, and his fair hair drooped in a lank lock over his forehead: there was an angry red mark from brow to chin where a branch of a sapling had struck him, swinging back after the rush of a bullock. One sleeve of his blouse hung in tatters, and there was a big triangular tear in his trousers, while his stockings, in rags, hung round his ankles. His knees were scarred and cut. But he was undeniably happy.