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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
By the time the vanguard of the sheep was abreast of them out on the plain, the first of the meal was ready for the men, who began to canter out from the moving dust cloud towards them, and for the next hour they were fed in relays, and pile after pile of chops and pot after pot of tea vanished rapidly.
Ess’s face was scorching and her knees trembling under her when her uncle and Steve Knight rode up.
“Making myself useful, you see, uncle,” she called gaily, and Scottie Mackellar looked at her dubiously.
“So I see, lass,” he said, “but I doubt if it’s wise for you to be workin’ in that sun.”
“It’s all right,” she assured him. “Blazes rigged a sort of shelter with the tent, and I’ve kept under that mostly, and helped manufacture chops. But now I’m coming to have some tea with you, if Blazes will let me spell off.”
They sat round the cook cart, from the top of which Blazes had rigged the tent as an awning, and ate their meal in the roughest sort of picnic fashion. Ess had a box to sit on, but the two men simply squatted tailor-wise with a plate between their knees.
“Lord, but that’s good,” said Steve Knight, sipping at the hot tea, and blowing it impatiently. “Worst of hot tea is it’s so tantalising. A man wants to lift the billy to his head and swallow a quart of it right down, instead of taking dainty little sips at it like a lady at an afternoon tea party.”
“I’m sure the ladies would feel flattered at the comparison,” laughed Ess, “if they could see you holding a black tin billy-can with both hands, and gulping out of it, and blowing on the tea like a grampus between gulps.”
“If the ladies had been bucketing about in a red-hot sun on a red-hot saddle, over red-hot sand all day, I’m thinking they’d gulp too,” retorted Steve.
“And the poor sheep have the same sun and sand, and nothing to drink,” said Ess, pityingly.
“Poor sheep!” snorted Steve. “Silly staggering blighters. Here we’re working ourselves to death just to persuade them to hurry up to their chance of salvation in the hills, and they go crawling along, and standing up to look at you, and trying to run the wrong way, while we sling whip-cracks and cusses at ’em till our arms, lips, and language are stiff.”
Scottie Mackellar had been munching at his bread and meat, and swallowing his hot tea in silence. “How are they making out, uncle?” she asked him.
“No’ very good,” said Scottie. “They’re beginnin’ tae drop in droves, an’ they’re too weak tae more than crawl. We’re keepin’ them on the move through the nicht.”
“Forced marching, you see,” said Steve; “it’s do or die with them now. If we can get them into the hills by to-morrow night we may pull them through; if not – ” he broke off and shrugged his shoulders.
“Are ye going back for that buggy to-night?” asked Scottie.
“Yes,” said Steve, “I’ll start inside half an hour.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t drive it instead of riding to-day,” said Ess, in dismay. “You must be dead tired, and will have little enough rest to-night, as it is.”
“Hutt!” said Steve, lightly. “I’ll be glad of a straight-on-end canter, after dodging about like a cat on hot bricks all day. And the drive back here in the buggy will be a rest enough from the saddle, and I’ll get an hour or two’s sleep when I get here.”
“I wish – I wish I might ride over and drive back with you,” said Ess. “Do you think I might, uncle?”
“Please yersel’, lass. If it’s no tirin’ ye too much.”
“Good,” said Steve, enthusiastically. “The sun’s down now, and it’ll be a bit cooler. I’ll get the horses, and we’ll start right off.”
“I don’t quite see how you know your way,” said Ess, a quarter of an hour after they had started, and had settled down to a long, steady canter.
Steve laughed. “Look down,” he said; “don’t you see the sheep tracks?”
“I don’t,” she confessed; “it’s too dark to see anything but a blur of sand.”
“Look up, then,” he answered; “the stars aren’t blurred anyway, and they point the way. I wish they weren’t so confoundedly bright. A bank of thick black cloud would mean a lot to me just now.”
“You’re thinking of rain?” said Ess.
“Does one think of anything else these days?” he said. “And now, to-night, rain would mean more to me than ever it did.”
“Why more than yesterday?” she asked.
“Wait till we’re driving back and I can talk in comfort, and I’ll tell you,” he said, and thereafter they rode in silence, the shuffling hoof-beats in the sand and the creak of saddlery the only sounds that broke the stillness.
“There’s the clump of trees we were camped at,” he said presently. “And there’s the buggy. We’ll find the horses near – hark! There they are,” as the buggy horses neighed loudly.
“Now we’ll have a cup of tea,” he said. “I haven’t got to-day’s dust out of my throat yet, and I don’t suppose you have.”
He leaped from his horse and helped the girl down, and fastened the reins to the buggy wheel. In three minutes he had collected a handful of sticks, started a fire, and stood the billy beside it, tilted the water into it from a waterbag, and left it to boil while he went off after the buggy horses. It was boiling when he came back, and he dropped a handful of tea in it and lifted it off the fire.
“Cups,” he said, and produced them from his pocket. “Sugar,” he tipped a screw of paper from a cup. “Milk – you must imagine … and there you are,” dipping a cupful of tea out and putting it beside her. “Spoon – ” he picked up a twig and handed it to her. “Everything kept on the premises you see.”
In ten minutes they had finished their tea, the buggy horses harnessed in, and Ess’s horse fastened to the buggy with a leading rope. “We must train him to follow as mine will always do,” said Steve; “I simply fasten my rein back to my stirrup, and there you are.”
“Now,” said Steve, when they had started and were bowling along at a rapid trot, “I was going to tell you why I’m more anxious than ever for rain.”
“I warn you I’ll expect something thrilling after these preliminaries,” she said.
“Thrilling enough if you’re anything of a gambler,” said Steve. “You know, and have seen something, of the struggle going on to battle the sheep through. Well, I’m sitting into the game and taking a hand to play out against the weather and the country. I had a long talk with the old boss to-day, and I’ve made a deal with him for some of his sheep. I’ve bought some thousands of them – I don’t know just how many exactly.”
“Bought sheep?” said Ess, in some astonishment. “But surely this is a bad time to buy sheep – when you see them dying under your eyes.”
“Bad time for an investment,” said Steve, “but a good time for a gamble. The odds are long, but the stake is more worth the winning. I’ve bought on peculiar terms. I’ve had a few hundred pounds put away – I made it once on a turn of the hand, and always saved it for a fling at something worth while – and I’ve paid that for a proportion of the total number of sheep the boss has left at the next lambing season. If half his sheep pull through I’ll double or treble my money. If they all or nearly all die, I lose the lot. By the way they’re travelling to-day, and the looks of them, it’s a toss-up whether they reach the hills; so I may be broke, and the game finished by to-morrow night. If they are not into the hills by then it’s hopeless for them. If they are, I win the first hand,