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By Blow and Kiss. Boyd Cable
Читать онлайн.Название By Blow and Kiss
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Автор произведения Boyd Cable
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
“We ride, thank Heaven,” said Steve, fervently. “I tell you my legs are aching to get a grip on a saddle again. This sheep work doesn’t suit me, and I’m sick of the sight and sound and stench of the brutes. Give me a good horse on the hillsides, and the cattle charging to – er – billy-oh, and there’s something in it.”
“Never mind the cattle now,” she said; “tell me about the sheep. Can I help drive them?”
“I’ll lend you my stockwhip,” said Steve. “All you have to do is ride behind the mob and crack the whip. And it’s so easy to crack a stockwhip.”
“Now I know you’re fibbing,” she said accusingly. “Because uncle warned me, one day I had his, that I might cut my head off with it. Didn’t you, uncle?”
“Maybe no cut it off a’thegither,” said Scottie, “but ye can gie yersel’ a nasty bit slash wi’t.”
“Then I’ll cut you a long pole, and you can prod them in the ribs, and punch them up with it,” said Steve.
“Why prod them and crack whips at them?” asked Ess. “Is there any need to hurry them?”
“Need enough,” said Steve. “See here…” He dropped on one knee and picked up a stick, and scratched lines in the sand: “Here’s the camp, here’s the line of the hills, and here’s the valley leading to the Ridge. The hills in the back of the Ridge have the most feed left, and have some fairly level patches, so we’re pushing the sheep for there. You know how far it is to the valley leading to the Ridge, and you know there’s no water between here and there. And the sheep are weak enough now, and they’re getting weaker every day, and the longer they take to get there, the more will die on the road. So you see there is some need to hurry them. You’ll see some mighty unpleasant and apparently cruel work this next day or two, and I don’t know but what your uncle is making up his mind to send you to the station till it’s over.”
He glanced at Scottie as he spoke, but Ess spoke quickly.
“Uncle is going to do nothing of the sort,” she said. “I want to go right through this thing and see everything. I’m not going to be chased away when I don’t want to go.”
“We’ll let you do one day,” said Scottie, “and then you’ll mebbe go on ahead. I’ll likely be sending Blazes back to the Ridge then.”
“What time do we start, uncle?”
“We’ll be off at the first glint o’ licht,” said Scottie. “You can get some breakfast from the cook after we’re gone, an’ he’ll tak down the tent and pack it.”
“May I ride then? But who’ll drive the buggy back?”
“I can ride back after we make camp and bring it on,” said Steve; “we won’t move very far each day.”
“That’ll do,” said Scottie.
Steve had been sitting fastening a new cracker to his whip, and when he had finished Ess took it and tried to handle and crack it, he putting her grip right and showing how to hold and swing it, and the two of them laughing and playing like children with a toy. Steve praised her quickness in learning, and she was pleased out of all proportion at the praise. And when he left her that night she said: “I’m sorry we’re done with Mulga Camp. I’ve been so happy.”
It was still dark next morning when Ess heard the shouts and whip crackings, and bleating of the disturbed sheep, and when she emerged from her tent soon after light there was nothing to be seen of them but a heavy dun bank of dust on the horizon. She hurried over to the tent and cart where Blazes was busy packing up. “We’re completely left behind, Blazes,” she called. “Do let’s hurry and catch them. They’re ever so far away.”
“’Tain’t so fur, miss,” said Blazes; “you sit down an’ eat these chops, and we’ll soon be off after ’em, and catchin’ ’em.”
Ess ate her breakfast and helped Blazes to pack and take down her tent, then watched him take the horses down to water, and let him help her to the saddle. They trotted off over the broad track of the innumerable pointed dots of the sheep’s footprints, and as they came near to the dust Blazes swung well out on the flank of it. “We’ll dodge as much o’ that as we can,” he said; “it’s too like breathin’ solid sand to ride behind it.”
“But don’t the men have to ride behind it and in it?” asked Ess.
“They do, but we don’t,” said Blazes; “so we ain’t goin’ to.”
“What are those men doing with the carts?” asked Ess, pointing to one or two carts that zigzagged back and forth across the plain in the rear of the sheep.
“Pickin’ up skins,” said Blazes, briefly. They passed one or two of those ghastly red heaps, with the busy crows already at work, and Ess shuddered in spite of herself.
Through the dust she could see the horsemen looming dimly, and hear the clamour of cracking whips and barking dogs, and the scuffling rushes of the driven sheep. More horsemen were strung along the length of the sides of the moving droves, the whips snapping and lashing at the laggards.
As Blazes and Ess passed along the line they heard a hail and saw a dim figure waving through the haze. “How d’you like it, Miss Lincoln?” called Steve Knight, pushing his way out to them. His horse was wading knee deep in a slow-moving river of dirty grey backs, and carefully picking his way so as not to tread on the sheep that crowded under his hoofs.
“Seems to me that veil of yours is a useful idea,” commented Steve, as he emerged beside them, and tried to spit the dust from his lips. His face was coated and grimed thick, and nobody could have told the colour of his clothes, his hat, or even of his horse, for the clinging red layer.
“Aren’t you dreadfully thirsty?” asked Ess. “I know I am, in spite of my veil, and I’ve only just caught up, and have kept fairly clear of the dust.”
Steve made a grimace. “I’m thirsty – I believe you,” he said, “but the day’s hardly begun, and it’s early to bother about thirst yet. But you’d best push ahead and catch Blazes up. He’ll go ahead to where we’ll halt to-night, and he might scratch a cup of tea for you. I must be shovin’ ’em on. Wouldn’t care to take the whip and have a smack at ’em, would you?”
She shook her head. “Poor brutes,” she said.
He laughed. “The sheep or the men?” he asked.
“Both,” she said. “I’m sorry for you both.”
“All in the day’s work,” he said, and turned to the sheep again. “Get well out from the dust,” he shouted to her, “and canter till you’re clear.”
The spot selected for the night’s camp was by an old well, nearly a mile wide of the line of march the sheep were taking to the hills.
The well was almost dry, and would provide barely enough water for the horses and men, and when Blazes got up the first bucketful, he looked at it ruefully.
“Seems ter me we won’t need to put no tea in that,” he remarked; “pretty near thick enough an’ black enough as it is.”
Ess inspected it gravely. “I should rather say it will need a lot of tea in it, to kill the taste it looks like having,” she said.
Ess and Blazes were acting advance guard, and none of the others had arrived, although, far off on the horizon, they could see the dust cloud that heralded the coming of the sheep. Blazes had brought a load of wood from the last camp – there was not a stick or a chip or twig in sight on the glaring, sun-scorched plain round the well – and immediately got to work preparing a meal for the riders, who would arrive later on. Ess insisted on helping him, although he tried to protest. “I dunno wot your uncle would say to see you stabbin’ round wi’ that knife,” he urged. “Choppin’ up sheep carcases ain’t no work for a girl.”
“There