CHAPTER V
“Steve,” said Scottie next morning, before they started work in the mulga paddocks, “we’re tae camp here for a few days. Ride back t’ the Ridge, will ye, an’ bring Ess back in the buggy. Bring the six b’ eight tent, and tell Blazes to bring the cart wi’ blankets an’ tucker for the men.”
So Steve dropped his axe and flung the saddle back on his horse, and in ten minutes was cantering hard across the flats under the scorching sun. “Wonder why Scottie picked me to come,” he thought. “Won’t the others be mad?” and he chuckled in high spirits.
As he came over the rise of the road to the plateau he saw Ess Lincoln and Blazes at the cook-house door. Steve came down the slope with a rush, lifted his horse and leaped the gate with a ringing whoop, and pulled his horse to its haunches within a couple of yards of the astonished pair.
“Orders, Miss Lincoln,” he said gaily. “Pack up and move. Sling together any things you need for a week’s camp-out, and get ready to come back with me in the buggy. And, Blazes, I’ll help you meantime to load the cart – blankets, tucker, and the rest – and you’re to drive it down.”
“Camp where – what for?” asked Ess in astonishment.
“In the mulga paddocks,” said Steve. “Boss was over this morning, and gave the order. I’ve been expecting it myself for days. It’s rather senseless riding up and down here every day.”
“But I never camped in my life,” said Ess; “I don’t know a thing about it. What do I wear – what do I take – how do I sleep? Couldn’t I stop here?”
Steve laughed out. “You can’t be a real out-backer till you’ve boiled your billy over a camp fire,” he declared. “I suppose it sounds very peremptory and offhand to you, but there’s nothing in it really. You’ll get used to it in no time, and will learn to roll your swag and hit the track for a camping trip with less bother than you have now to get your dinner ready.”
“It’s all very well,” broke in Blazes, angrily. “But here’s me wi’ the spuds peeled, and half the things ready for cookin’, an’ – ”
“Blazes,” said Steve, gravely, “I’m surprised at you grumbling at a little thing like that. And if Miss Lincoln hears an old battler like you grumbling about going to camp she’ll think it is something serious. I thought you’d have told her she could count on you to pull her through,” he said, reproachfully.
“Why, so she can,” said Blazes, eagerly. “You’ll be all right, Miss, don’t you worry none. I’ll look arter you.”
“Now, if you’ll get your things together, Miss Lincoln,” said Steve, “Blazes and I will have the cart loaded in no time. We have a light tent for you. You don’t have to trouble about anything except your own personal stuff. That’s simple, isn’t it?”
He turned to the men’s bunk-house. “Come on, Blazes; you dig out the provisions and I’ll get the men’s blankets and things.”
An hour later Ess was staring helplessly at the chaos in her room when she heard a cheery shout of “Tea-oh!” and going to the window saw the cart loaded, and the buggy standing ready beside it.
She heard a knock at the door and Steve’s voice.
“All ready, Miss Lincoln? Come over to the cook-house and have a cup of tea, and then we’ll be off. Blazes has to get down to get the dinner ready you know, so we must move.”
She came out to the door. “I’m in an awful fix,” she said. “There seems so many things I might want, and the only box I have seems too big to load on the buggy.”
“Box?” said Steve, opening his eyes. “It’s too bad of me, though,” he said, laughing. “I should have told you more exactly. But come and have some tea, and I’ll give you a load of advice on camping out. Advice is easy to carry, and doesn’t take much room, and ‘travel light’ is the great essential of camp trips.”
They walked across to the cook-house, where Blazes had a meal of cold meat and tea ready for them.
When the hasty meal was finished, “Come on now,” said Steve, jumping up. “It’s high noon, and we must be shoving off. They’ll think we’re lost. Blazey, you push along with the cart, and we’ll catch you before you reach the flat.”
“If you drive, what about your horse?” said Ess, when they came outside, and she noticed Steve’s horse with the saddle still on.
“He’ll follow,” said Steve, easily. “But that reminds me – you ought to have your horse. You’ll miss the fun else. You go and get into riding rig and I’ll bring him in. I’ll tie him back of Blazes’ cart.”
He was into the saddle and off with a rush, and Ess looked at Blazes and laughed ruefully.
“This is the most offhand arrangement I ever met,” she said. “You people seem to expect me to go for a week’s camp as easy as I’d ride down to the gate with you. And what to take and what to leave behind I don’t know a bit.”
“Jest take them things you’ll need,” said Blazes, comfortingly, but vaguely. “Here’s Steve again. He don’t waste time, do he?”
“Now, Blazes, push off,” said Steve, when he had fastened the horse to the tail of the cart with a long leading rope. “And, Miss Lincoln, we’ll get your things.”
Blazes drove off, and the other two walked across to the house.
“Now look here,” said Ess desperately, “you’ll just have to tell me everything I must take.”
“Put on your riding kit,” said Steve. “What you stand in is all you need in the way of clothes, except one change. Dark blouse – water’s scarce, and more like mud than washing water.”
They came to the house, and Steve opened the door and walked in after her.
“Now you go into your own room and change, and I’ll call the things you need, and you can pick ’em out. Don’t waste time, please, Miss Lincoln.”
Ess went meekly to her own room.
“If you’ll give me a couple of blankets, I’ll go and get a spare bit of oilcloth for a ground sheet and roll a swag for you,” called Steve, and in a moment Ess brought out the blankets. Steve ran over to the bunk-house, and came back in a few minutes with a square of American oilcloth. He found Ess waiting dressed in her riding skirt and soft hat.
“Good,” he said, heartily. “We’ll make a campaigner of you in no time. Now go and pick the things I tell you.”
Ess went obediently.
“Got a small dress basket?” said Steve.
“Yes,” came the answer.
“Really small?” persisted Steve.
Ess brought it out.
“Nothing smaller?” he asked, looking at it.
“Only a very small one,” she said meekly, and went and brought it.
“That’ll do,” he said.
“But I’ll never get all my things in that,” declared Ess in dismay.
“Yes, you will,” he said. “Now go and pack. Give me a small cushion or pillow first, though. That’s a luxury, and outside the strict necessaries, but we’ll allow it this time.”
She brought the cushion, and he spread the oilcloth on the floor and the blanket over it. The pillow went in the centre, and he commenced to roll the bundle. Ess went back to her own room at his command.
“Hand mirror, brush, comb, toothbrush,” he called, and presently “Yes” she answered. “Put the basket middle of the room and sling the things in as I call,” he instructed. “Towel and soap.” “Yes.” “Two or three pair of stockings, and a change of under things.” He heard her movements suddenly cease, and the sound of a smothered laugh. Then “Yes” again, very meekly. “That’s all,” he said. “Cram them in, and I’ll strap the basket.”
She brought the basket out. “But how do I wash?” she said. “Don’t I need a basin or anything?”
“Pails in camp,” he said, promptly. “Don’t I need candles?” she asked. “Sun, moon and stars are your candles,” he said, picking up the basket and blankets. “You go to bed in the dark and get up in daylight.” “Uncle has a canvas camp bed here. Can’t I take that? Don’t I have a bed?” she said.
“Make a bed of leaves on the ground. Come along, I assure you there’s nothing else you need,” and they went out to the buggy. “Your saddle, bridle, and a pair of hobbles,” he said, flinging them under the seat. “And now we’re off. See how easy it is?”
They trotted over the Ridge, and Steve snapped his whip about the horses till they broke into a canter.
“Take a grip and hang tight,” said Steve, flicking the horses again.
“Why – are you – in such a hurry?” she jerked out as they bumped and rattled down the slope.
“Oh, this isn’t hurrying,” he assured her easily. “Just a fair pace. I like moving fast as the horses can with comfort. It’ll be slow enough jogging across the flats.”
She said no more till they caught up Blazes and the cart.
“Shake ’em up, Blazey,” he shouted cheerily. “We’ll go on and tell ’em you’re coming. Pull in and give us room to pass.”
“There isn’t room to pass here, surely,” said Ess in alarm, looking at the steep slope below the road, and the bank above it.
“I think so,” said Steve, casually. “We’ll see,” and he laid the whip across the horse’s flanks. They shaved past the cart wheels by a bare inch or two, and on the other side their wheels scraped along the very edge, grinding and rasping and actually dipping over the edge for a few yards. The buggy tilted sharply, but almost before Ess could make a frantic clutch at the sides, they were past the cart, and rattling down the road again.
“After that I think you might almost compliment me on my seat – in a buggy,” she said, demurely.
He looked at her and laughed out loud, but in a moment dropped again to seriousness.
“I didn’t half thank you for that last night,” he said. “It was really plucky as well as kind – ”
“No, no,” she said hastily. “I didn’t mean – don’t let’s talk about it again.”
“But there’s something I want to tell you about it,” he said. “I’m afraid you may not like it, but I ought to tell,” and he told her of the talk, and the bet between Aleck Gault and him.
“Are you angry?” he asked when he had finished.
“Not exactly,” she replied hesitatingly. “Although, of course, a girl doesn’t care about her probable actions being discussed and bet about.”
“Bless you,” he said laughing. “Don’t you know that there’s been nothing else but you discussed ever since you came here?”
“I hadn’t thought of it,” she said, a little startled. “But I suppose it’s understandable… But what made you think I would snub you?” she went on. “You know we’d hardly spoken before.”
They had passed through the gate now, and were moving at a fast trot across the flat.
“I just guessed you would,” he said slowly. “You see I had a notion that you were forewarned, and therefore fore-armed against me.” He shot a sidelong glance at her, and noticed a faint flush on her cheek. She said nothing, however. “I know the reputation I carry round these parts – some of it worse than I deserve, and some of it not as bad; and it was a fair guess that your uncle would warn you against – er – falling in love with me,” he finished coolly.
Ess sat up straight very suddenly.
“You’re rather presuming,” she said quietly, but very coldly. “Do you imagine my uncle thinks I cannot meet a man without falling in love with him? Or is it that you consider yourself so utterly irresistible?”
“That goes with my reputation – deserved or undeserved,” he said imperturbably.
“And of course you believe it, and try to act up to it,” she said in her most sarcastic tones. “May I ask if you’re trying to do so now?”
“Do what?” he asked. “Be irresistible? If so, you can see for yourself that the reputation isn’t deserved. I’m only succeeding in making you thoroughly angry, aren’t I?”
She only closed her lips tightly, and they drove in silence for nearly a mile.
“Look here, Miss Lincoln,” said Steve at last. “It’s rather hopeless for us to keep on like this. We’ll be running across each other every day, and it’s a nuisance for me to have to try to keep dodging you, and I’m sure it must be uncomfortable for you if you have to freeze up and put your nose in the air every time I come along. I haven’t the faintest wish to fall in love with you, and there’s no need for me to have, any more than there is for you – ”
“The latter certainly need not trouble you,” she could not help retorting.
“There you are, then,” he said. “That being understood, can’t we just get along same as you do with the others in camp? Forget my reputation if you can, so long as I don’t obtrude it on you. Just let’s be ordinary friendly. I’ll promise not to fall in love with you – if I can help it …” he saw the shadow of a smile quiver about her lips, and went on: “I assure you I’d be really afraid to fall in love with any girl and especially with you. I’ve been most clearly warned what will be done to me if I do.”
“Done to you? What do you mean?”
“Oh, I’ve had very broad hints as to my conduct from some of the others,” he said lightly.
“How dare they?” said the girl hotly. “As if I was not able to take care of my own affairs.”
“Exactly,” agreed Steve. “But that’s my reputation again, you see. They’re afraid you may go down before my fatal fascination.”
“I hardly know what to make of you,” she said, looking at him curiously. “If another man spoke as you’re doing, about his ‘reputation’ and ‘fascination’ and so on, I’d think him the most insufferably conceited prig. And somehow you don’t seem that.”
“I’m not,” he assured her promptly. “It’s other people who seem to insist that every girl I meet must admire me. I know better, thank Heaven. I don’t want ’em to, and least of all do I want you to. It would be a most confounded nuisance for one thing. You might expect me to take you out walking when I didn’t want to walk and want to go riding with me when I wanted to go by myself, and forbid my going to the township, and expect me to give up drinking and smoking, and think I ought to go and sit in the house with you every evening.”
She could contain herself no longer, and her laugh rang out ripplingly.
“It’s all very well to laugh,” he said reprovingly. “But you know what the average man and girl are when they’re courting. It must be deucedly awkward when they’re living on the same place. It’s all right to be making love to a girl, coming across her at odd times, if there’s nothing else to do, but I fancy it would be too much of a strain to keep it up.”
“I could imagine it would be,” she admitted.
“I know I should get horribly tired of it, and of her,” he said; “I do of most girls, anyway – ”
“Unstable as water,” she put in softly.
“Now I’ll bet that’s a quotation from your uncle’s warning,” he said triumphantly. “You gave it away that time.”
“Not necessarily,” she retorted. “I might merely have quoted it as applying to your own description of yourself.”
“Well, anyway, I hope I’ve made it clear I don’t want any love business between us,” he said. “So is there any reason we shouldn’t just be plain friends without any frills? Of course if you’re afraid of falling in love with me – ” and he paused suggestively.
“You put it rather cunningly,” she laughed. “If I won’t be friendly it’s because I’m afraid of you, and…”
“Is there any reason you shouldn’t be, then?” he asked.
“No,” she said slowly. “Except that you have rather a – well, your reputation, you know. That isn’t meant unkindly, but if we’re going to be friendly, we must be frank.”
“Surely,” agreed Steve, heartily. “But it will take more than my reputation to smirch you. And although mine is nothing to me, I can assure you yours is. You can trust me that far, in spite of what you may have heard of me.”
“I’ll trust you,” she said, and held out her hand impulsively. “We’ll be friends then.”
He took her hand and shook it. “And I’ll ask nothing better,” he said. “Now there are the mulga trees ahead of us. You know we’re cutting them down to feed the sheep on.”
“Yes, I know,” she said; “Uncle told me all about it. He called this country a battlefield in describing it to me, and he said the mulga was almost the last ammunition you had left to carry on the fight with.”
“Almost,” Steve said, “and the hills are our last trenches. When the mulga gives out we’ll have to retreat to them, and that’s going to be a bad business. The sheep are too weak to travel far, and it’s a long way for them.”
A faint wavering cry came across the flats to their ears.
“Hark! the sound of battle,” he said. “The sheep bleating, in less poetical language. Well, you’ll be right up in the firing line here, and I’m afraid it will be rather sickening for you some ways.”
“I’m so sorry for the poor sheep,” she said.
“I’m sorrier for the poor boss,” said Steve. “He’s losing hundreds a day, and it’ll be thousands presently, and the lot if it doesn’t rain soon.”
“It’s long past the time the rains should have come, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Months past,” he said. “They’re talking of it being the beginning of another long drought. But we’re hanging on and hoping for the rain any day.”
“Any day?” she said, in dismay. “What will I do if it rains while I’m down here? I’ve no dry things to change.”
“Do?” he said laughingly. “Do if it rains? You’ll stand out in it, and let it soak you to the skin, and throw up your hat and cheer, same as the rest of us. Do you realise that an hour’s good rain would save the boss thousands of pounds, and a long day’s rain might keep him his station and run, while without it he might have to sell up and get out – a beggar? And he’s an old man, too.”
“He is married, isn’t he?” she asked.
“Yes, and his wife and girls are down in the city. Best place for ’em, too. It’s no place for a woman up here in a dry spell.”
“Thank you,” she said primly.
“Sorry,” he laughed. “I wasn’t thinking of you, though honestly I’m afraid it’s rough for you, and may be rougher. By the way, what a nice way out of my difficulty it would be if you could marry. Won’t you think it over? You could have your pick of anyone on the Ridge for a start.”
“Is that a proposal?” she asked. “I thought we agreed – ”
“Most certainly not,” he protested indignantly. “And if you’re going to twist my well-intentioned remarks into proposals of marriage, I’ll get out and walk. I shall have to appeal to your uncle to protect me.”
“Well, if you don’t mind, sir, I won’t be married to-day, thank you,” she joked. “But if I think of it later on, I’ll apply to you, as you seem so confident of finding a husband.”
“I’ll round you up a whole mob, and let you take your pick,” he said. “Don’t let me hurry you, but it would be such a blessing if we could be pals without being accused of having other ends in view.”
“Even for that great boon I’m afraid I can’t oblige just now,” she laughed.
As they approached the trees the cry of the sheep rose to one long, thin, continuous wail, and through it they could hear the ring of axes at work.
“There’s Scottie,” said Steve, pointing to a figure waving a hat in the air. “He wants us over there evidently.”
He wheeled the buggy, and the horses cantered across to where Scottie waited them.
Steve jumped down and helped the girl to alight, unharnessed and hobbled the horses, and turned them loose.
“Blazes is following on with the cart, Mac,” he said. “Now, Miss Lincoln, I’ll be off and fling my weight into the assault on the trees.”
“Why did you send him for me, uncle?” asked Ess, when Steve had gone.
Scottie looked at her. “Why no him as any o’ the others?” he said.
“And why not any of the others as well as him?” she retorted. “I only wondered at your sending him after warning me of the sort of man he was.”
“That was pairtly the reason,” replied Scottie. “I saw ye were actin’ on my judgment, an’ I thought it better to give ye a chance to hae a talk to the man an’ form yer ain opinion.”
“Well, I’m rather glad you did,” she confessed. “We had a long talk, and he certainly made no great pretensions about himself. He told me very bluntly that he knew I’d been warned against him, and that the warning was quite unnecessary, as he had no wish to fall in love with me or have me love him.”
“Talk o’ love is apt tae be a risky thing between a man an’ a maid,” said Scottie, slowly, and eyeing her closely. “It’s chancy wark, the handlin’ o’ an edged tool.”
“But better surely to know it is edged,” she said, “and to put it in a stout sheath, and bury it away. And that’s what we’ve done.”
“Well, well, ye’re old enough tae pick yer own road,” said Scottie. “An’ I’m aye within reach o’ yer signals if ye get slewed.”
A light sulky, drawn by a pair of fast trotting horses, whirled into sight from amongst the trees, and spun up to where the two were standing. “Here’s Mr. Sinclair, the boss,” said Scottie, as he approached.
The driver was a tremendously stout and heavy man, with a full round face, which he managed to keep cheerful even now, in the face of all his anxieties.
“Ha, Mackellar,” he said. “So this is the niece, is it? How d’you do, my dear. So you’re going to try camping out, eh? Hope you won’t find it too rough. Couldn’t leave her alone up there, of course, Mackellar, but I’ll take her over to the home station while you’re out if you like. He didn’t tell me you were so young and pretty, Miss – er – Lincoln. Really, I don’t know it’s safe to leave you here, you know. Have the men quarrelling and cutting each other’s throats instead of trees.”
He laughed heartily at his own joke. “What d’you say, Miss Lincoln? Care to come and put up at the station for a few days?”
“No, thank you,” said Ess. “I want to see something of the work you’re doing here, and the fight you’re making.”
“Heart-breaking work,” he said soberly. “And the worst is it’s little enough we can do. Stand by and watch the sheep die mostly and hope for rain. But we may win through yet, eh, Mackellar?”
“I hope so, sir,” said Scottie. “But we’ll hae t’ move the sheep soon. The mulga’s gettin’ thinned, and there’s no more than a few days’ water in the last o’ the tanks.”
“We’ll hold on to the last here,” said the boss, “and then settle whether it’s to be the hills or a boiling down. But every day gained is a day nearer the rains, Mackellar.”
“Oh, I do hope the rain will come, Mr. Sinclair,” said Ess impulsively.
“Thank you, my dear,” said the old man, very softly. “If the prayers of the women will bring it, we’ll surely have plenty. It’s hard on the women, Miss Lincoln. My wife down yonder writes me that the girls are round to the post office every day to see if there’s any bulletin posted of rain in the back country. They know what it means, and it’s hard on them waiting. But we’ll battle through yet, maybe, or we’ll go down trying. Eh, Mackellar?”
“We’ll dae that at least,” said Scottie.
“I’ve good men, Mackellar. Good men. There’s not a lad amongst them wouldn’t spend his last ounce to win through. It helps an old man, Miss Lincoln, to feel that good men are at his back to hammer things through. It helps a lot – a lot.”
He dropped the whip lightly on his horses.
“I’m going to have a look at Number Seven tank, Mackellar,” he said. “Good-bye just now, Miss Lincoln. Cheer the boys up. A woman can always do that, and it all helps – all helps.”
He slacked his reins, and the trotters sprang forward with a jerk and a rush.
“Poor old man,” said Ess. “And poor Mrs. Sinclair. Uncle, you will tell me if there’s anything I can do to help. I would so like to.”