Part 28

Half an hour passed. The sun sank below the horizon, gorgeous in red and gold, and Turner watched the last rosy flush die out of the western sky. Darkness fell, and he sat on smoking and thinking sadly, till his comrade loomed up out of the gloom.

“Is that you, Stanesby?” he called out.

“Who the devil should it be?” Then remembering his hospitality, “Why you Ye all in the dark! Why didn’t you light a candle!”

The girl did not make her appearance, and Turner did not comment on her absence. Stanesby said nothing. He lighted a candle, and calling Jimmy to his assistance, began clearing the table and washing up the dirty plates and pannikins. Turner offered to help, but was told ungraciously that two were enough, and so went on smoking and watched in silence. He did not feel on intimate enough terms to comment; but he knew well enough Stanesby had gone out to find the girl, and either failed to find her, or at any rate failed to bring her back. It was no business of his any way, and he sat smoking till he was called to the evening meal, which was a repetition of the mid-day one, with milkless tea instead of whisky for a beverage.

Stanesby apologised.

“I ‘m clean out of whisky, I ‘m sorry to say.”

“It’s all right, old man. I don’t often manage to get it at all on Jinfalla.”

They discussed station matters then, discussed them all the evening, though Turner could not but feel that his host’s thoughts were far away. Still they lasted, they interested the man who was bound to live on here, till at length Stanesby got up with a mighty yawn and suggested they should turn in.

There was a bunk fixed against the wall, and he threw his comrade’s blankets into it.

“It’s all I can do for you to-night, old man. Come to Heyington next year, and I ‘ll treat you better.”

“Thanks,” said Turner. “No such luck for me.” Then he spoke the thought that had been in his mind all the evening.

“I say, that girl hasn’t come in.”

“She’s all right, she can sleep out then. I can’t say it’ll cool her temper, for it’s as hot as blazes still. Good night, old chap.”

Turner lay awake long after the light was out, staring up at the unceiled roof, at the faint light that marked the open doorway and the window, thinking, thinking, wondering at his own discontent, thinking of the fair-haired, blue-eyed girl he had loved so well and so long. It was all over between them now, all over; there had never been anything except on his side, never anything at all, and now it was not much good his even thinking of her. She would marry Dick Stanesby and never know, never dream----

His thoughts wandered to that other girl, it was no business of his, but it worried him nevertheless, as things that are no concern of ours do worry us when we lie wakeful on our beds, and the girl’s beautiful, angry face haunted him. He thought of her there down by the creek, alone in her dumb pain, so young, so ignorant, so beautiful. There was something wrong in the scheme of creation somewhere, something wrong, or why were such as she born but to suffer. His life was hard, cruelly hard, he had known better things; but she--she--hers had been hard all along. Had she known any happiness? he wondered. He supposed she had if she cared for Dick Stanesby. When first she came, unasked and unsought, he had been good to her; he knew his friend, he had known him from a boy, easy-going, good-natured, with no thought for the future for himself, how could he expect him to think for another? He had been good to her--oh, yes, he knew Dick Stanesby--very good to her, but he had taken no thought for her future any more than he would for his own. He would go into the head-station with him to-morrow morning, he very much doubted if he would come back. He would intend to at first, but it would be very much easier to stay, and he would stay, and the girl--what would become of her? He found himself saying it over and over again to himself, what would become of her? What could become of her? till he fell into an uneasy doze and dreamed that he was master of Heyington and had married Gladys Rowan, who was no other than Dick Stanesby’s hutkeeper, and crouched in the corner with a long, shining knife in her hand. Then he awakened suddenly and heard the sound of voices, a woman’s voice and Dick’s, Dick’s soft and tender. He could not hear the words, but the tones were enough. It was the same old Dick. He did not want her, he would rather be without her: but since she was there, he must needs be good to her. So she had come back after all! He might have known she was sure to come back. Why couldn’t she stop away? Why couldn’t she join her relatives down by the creek? Alas! and alas! The barrier between her and them was as great as it was between her and the white man. Greater, if possible. Poor child! poor child! How was it to end?

He tossed and turned and the voices went on softly murmuring. He thought of Gladys and grew angry, and finally, when he had given up all hope, he fell fast asleep.

Next morning he found that peace reigned. The girl came in and quietly cleared away the remnants of last night’s meal and began making preparations for breakfast. Her mind was at ease evidently. She had no doubts about the permanency of her heaven; and when she saw him she smiled upon him the same slow, lazy, contented smile with which she had first greeted him, apparently forgetting and expecting him to forget all disagreeable episodes of the day before. How long would this peace last? asked Guy Turner of himself.

The meal done, Stanesby called to his black boy to bring up the horses, and touching the girl on the shoulder drew her aside, evidently to explain that he was going into the head-station and wanted provisions for the journey.

“We’ll take a packhorse between us,” said he to Turner, “it’ll save trouble; and I ‘ll show you a decent camping-place for to-night.” Then he followed the girl outside, and his companion began rolling up his swag.

He came back a few moments later, the girl following, and Turner could not but note the change in her face. It was not angry now, there was hardly even a trace of sullenness on it. Fear and sorrow seemed struggling with one another for the upper hand, and she was sobbing every now and then heavily, as if she could not help herself.

“Good Lord! Stanesby, what the dickens have you been doing to the girl?” he said.

Stanesby looked at him angrily.

“You seem to take a confoundedly big interest in the girl,” he said.

“Well, hang it all, man, she looks as if she had been having a jolly bad time, and really she’s only a child.”

“A child, is she? A child that’s very well able to take care of herself. I haven’t been beating her, if that’s what you ‘re thinking. I suppose I may be allowed to go into the head-station occasionally without asking my hutkeeper’s leave.”

“Oh! that’s the trouble, is it? Depends upon your hutkeeper, I should say. I don’t ask mine, but then--”

Turner paused, and Stanesby answered the unspoken thoughts with an oath.

“Oh, if you feel that way,” began Turner, but his companion flung himself out of the hut angrily.