LITMIR.BIZ

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well,” she promised, “I’ll say nothing. But, do you know,” looking at him quizzically, “I’m rather surprised to hear that a man like you has managed to save some hundreds. It was agreed that we could be frank to each other, so you see I’m taking full advantage of it: Honestly, I thought you were such a reckless profligate spendthrift that I imagined you frightfully hard up.”

      “You’re quite right, and I usually am,” he admitted. “But I always had this little lot banked away for just such a chance as this. It was an awkward amount you see – too big to splash on a spree, and not enough to do anything big with. It just fits in here.”

      “But why take such a heavy risk with it?” she asked. “Surely there were safer things to do with it?”

      “Have you ever gone to a horse race?” he asked.

      “Yes, but I don’t see – ”

      “Then you’ve had a bet on a race – a shilling, or a box of chocolates, or a pair of gloves, perhaps?”

      “Yes,” she admitted again.

      “Then you know how much more interesting the race is when you have a bet on. Same thing with cards, a game’s mighty poor fun unless you play for coins or counters. Well, the sheep here are the coins and counters in the game we’re playing out, and I want to have my stake on the table along with the rest. Do you understand?”

      “Yes,” she said, “I understand, although I don’t need anything of my own in this to give me an interest. I’m hugely, tensely interested as it is, and I want to see the sheep pull through, and the boss and all of you win, as if every sheep were my own.”

      “That’s because you have the personal interest,” he said. “Because your uncle and every soul you know here is doing nothing else, and thinking of nothing else, but whether we’re going to win, and how we’re going to win.”

      “Yes, that’s true,” she said, “and I confess I am keener than ever since I’ve met the boss, and will be more so since I’ve heard of the personal interest you have in it.”

      “Thank you,” he said laughingly, “that’s a very pretty compliment. I see you know how to pay them even if you jump on a man for paying them to you.”

      “You’re too greedy for them,” she laughed, “or you’d know that the interest would be added the same if it were Whip or Blazes, or any of the others had bought the sheep.”

      “Now I suppose that serves me right,” he said, with a sigh of mock resignation. “I should have been content to take the compliment, and gloat over it in secret.”

      “Isn’t it a beautiful night?” she said serenely. “Excuse the transparent method of changing the personal conversation.”

      “I’ve noticed,” he said, “that when a woman runs away from a subject, it’s usually because she’s afraid of it.”

      “And you might have noticed,” she countered, “that when she does start to run away she can’t be persuaded or lured into facing it again – till she’s ready. It’s a beautiful night.”

      “Yes,” he said a trifle bitterly, “but a beautiful night out here is mostly like a beautiful woman, sweet and caressing maybe, so long as she wins her game, but hard enough and bitter enough back of it.”

      “I certainly can’t twist a compliment out of that,” she said drily; “I’d be interested to know whether you think me ugly, or merely bitter and hard.”

      “You’re pretty enough,” he said bluntly, “but I’ve no doubt you could and would be hard enough if the occasion arose.”

      “This is being frank with a vengeance,” she said ruefully. “But I suppose I brought it on myself. I can only hope, then, the occasion will not come.”

      “Perhaps,” he said gently, “it might be more useful if you hoped I’d prove a false prophet – perhaps you’ll remember that one day, and some poor devil may have reason to thank me for the suggestion.”

      “Aren’t those the lights of the camp?” she asked.

      “Yes,” he said, “and I’m sorry to see them. Please take that as it’s meant, and don’t spoil it by being nasty.”

      “Very well,” she said quietly, “I have enjoyed it too.”

      They drove into the camp and separated, she to her tent and he to snatch an hour’s sleep on the ground, without further word than a simple “Good night.”

      But Ess lay long that night and thought of their talk. And always her thoughts came back to the one point, and over and over she asked herself “Would I be hard – would I be hard if…”

      CHAPTER VII

      In the morning the sun was up before Ess was, and she came from her tent to find the sheep out of sight over the horizon, and the plains empty and silent. Two or three of the men had just finished their breakfast, and were mounting to ride on and overtake the mob, and Blazes told her he had been feeding them in relays for the past three hours. Ess found him in the full flight of one of his outbursts of rage.

      “I’m sick o’ the ’ole thing,” he declared, “expeck a man to cook chops, and bile gallons o’ tea, an’ wood as scarce as snowballs in ’ell – beg pardon, Miss – ” and he subsided as suddenly as a pricked toy balloon.

      “Go on, Blazes,” she said cheerfully; “you once told me it did you good to work your tempers off, you know. Don’t mind me.”

      “Ah,” he said, solemnly shaking his head. “But a temper’s no good to me if I can’t swear. An’ ’ere’s your breakfast, Miss.”

      “What are you going to do this morning?” she asked.

      “Drive right through to the Ridge,” he said. “There’s no water this side of it, so I can’t do anything.”

      “And will the men have to go on all day without tea?” she said.

      “They will so,” he said, “an’ all night too, if they don’t get the sheep to the ’ills. It’s tough, in that dust an’ all, but wot’s to be done for it?”

      “Couldn’t we carry some water from here,” she suggested, “and at least make tea somewhere on the road for them?”

      “Nothing to carry it in,” he said; “a pail or two, and a keresone tin bucket, an’ we’d spill most of it in the cart.”

      “Let me take them in the buggy,” she said eagerly. “I could drive slowly, and the plain is level and smooth enough. You could fasten my horse behind, or to your cart.”

      Blazes seemed inclined to grumble at the suggestion, but she cut short his objections. “Do let me, Blazes – please,” she said earnestly; “I know it will mean work for you boiling the water, but I would so like you to – won’t you, please?”

      “Right you are, Miss,” he said, suddenly cheerful. “And won’t it be a surprise to the boys when they comes up to us and we sings out ‘Tea-oh’? They won’t ’arf jump for it wi’ their tongues hangin’ out.”

      So the buckets and tins were filled to the brim and carefully loaded on the buggy, and they drove quietly off. They passed wide out on the plain, clear of the moving sheep that were strung out for long dusty miles. At a point which Blazes reckoned the men would reach by noon they swung in to the line of the march, which by now was running along close to the hills.

      “Why don’t they let the sheep up on the hills here,” Ess asked, “instead of taking them so much further?”

      “Too steep, an’ bare o’ feed, an’ not a drop o’ water for miles,” said Blazes. “They’d only do a perish there. The only chance is to get them to the valley to the Ridge. It’s easier going for ’em there, and it leads into some gullies, where they’ll scrape up a mouthful o’ feed an’ a chance o’ a drink. But we’ll get some sticks for the fire off the ’ills

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