Part 29

Then the girl turned round, and Turner wondered to himself if she were going to repeat the performance of last night. But no, she was quiet and subdued now, as if all hope, all resentment even, had left her.

“Going to the head station?” she asked, and her voice was soft and low and very sweet, with just a trace of the guttural enunciation of her mother’s race; but she spoke good English, far better than her appearance seemed to warrant, and did no small credit to old Miss Howard’s training.

“Yes, yes, of course. We’re going to the head station, but Stanesby ‘ll be back in a day or two,” he added soothingly, because of the sorrow on her face. And then he hated himself for saying so much. What business was it of his?

She stepped forward and laid both hands on his arm.

“Don’t take him away, don’t, don’t!” she pleaded.

Her big dark eyes were swimming with tears, and there was an intensity of earnestness in her tones that went to the young man’s heart. Besides, he was young, and she was very good to look upon.

“My dear child,” he said, his anger against his old friend growing, “I have nothing in the world to do with it. He must go into the head-station sometimes. He must have gone often before.”

She dropped her hands and leaned back wearily against the wall.

“No,” she said, “no, not when the myalls are down along the creek.”

“Good Lord! Those d----d black fellows! I never thought of them. But they won’t touch you!”

She looked up and smiled faintly, as if amused at his ignorance.

“Kitty tumble down,” she said, relapsing into the blackfellows’ English.

“Oh! come, I say,” said Turner, “this’ll never do.” And he went outside in search of Stanesby, whom he found strapping their swags on to the packhorse.

“Look here, I say, old man, that poor little beggar’s frightened out of her wits of the myalls down by the creek there.”

Stanesby shrugged his shoulders.

“All bunkum! I know her ways. She wants to get me to stop. She seems to guess there’s something in the wind. The myalls! pooh! They ‘re as tame as possible. They steal any odds and ends that are left about--that’s about their form.”

“But the poor child is frightened.”

“Frightened! Get out. There wasn’t much fright about her when she took the knife to you last night! She knows very well how to take care of herself, I can tell you.”

“But those myalls. On Jinfalla we--Well, it really seems to me risky to leave her all alone. Even if there isn’t any danger--the very fact of being alone--.”

“Pooh! Considering she tramped from the head-station here all the eighty miles on foot, just because of some breeze with the cook there, she must be mightily afraid of being alone. However, if you don’t like her being left, it ‘s open to you to stop and look after her. I ‘m going to start in about two minutes.”

“Oh, well, if you think it s all right--”

“Of course it’s all right. There ‘s Jimmy got your horse for you. Come on, old chap.”

Turner mounted, and Stanesby was just about to do the same, when with a quick cry the girl ran out of the hut and caught his arm.

She said no word, and before he, taken by surprise, could stop her, she had wound both her arms around his neck and laid her face against his breast.

Turner put his spurs into his horse, and rode off smartly. It was no affair of his. The whole thing made him angry whenever he thought of it.

As for Dick Stanesby, though usually never anything but gentle with a woman, he was thoroughly angry now; he had felt angry before, but now he was roused, which did not often happen, to put his anger into words.

“Confound you, Kitty! Do you hear me? Don’t be a fool!” and he roughly shook her off, so roughly that she lost her balance, staggered, and fell. He made a step forward to take his horse, which was held by the stolid black boy, but she was too quick for him and, grovelling on the ground at his feet, put out her arms and held him there, murmuring inarticulate words of tenderness and love. Stanesby stooped down, and caught her wrists in both his hands.

“Get up!” he said roughly, and dragged her to her feet. She stood there, leaning all her weight on his supporting hands, looking at him with reproachful eyes.