"And what do you think of doing eventually?"

"Oh, I don't know. I shall go home again, I suppose; I only came out for the voyage. After that, goodness knows; I was no real use at school either."

Insensibly the rocking-chair canter of the bush horses had lapsed into the equally easy amble which is well-nigh their one alternative; and the shadows were shortening, and the back of the neck and the ears were beginning to burn. The jackeroo was sweeping the horizon for pure inexplicable delight in its dirty greens and yellows; but had quite forgotten that he ought already to have been scouring it for sheep.

"And so the boss is good-natured, is he?" said Moya, she could not have told herself why; for she would not have admitted that it could afford her any further satisfaction to hear his praises.

"Good-natured?" cried the jackeroo. "He's all that and much more; there's not a grander or a straighter chap in Riverina, and we all swear by him; but--well, he is the boss, and let's you know it."

A masterful man; and Moya had wanted her master all these years! She asked no more questions, and they rode a s.p.a.ce in silence, Ives glancing sidelong in his turn, and in his heart congratulating Rigden more and more.

"By Jove," he cried at last, "I think I shall have to get you to use your influence on my behalf!"

"For what?" asked Moya, wincing again.

"Another chance! They mustn't give me the sack just yet--I must be here when you come. It's the one thing we need--a lady. It's the one thing _he_ needs to make him as nearly perfect as it's comfortable for other people for a man to be. And I simply must be here to see."

"Let's canter," said Moya. The blood came rushing to his face.

"I apologise," he cried. "It was horrid cheek of me, I know!"

Moya's rea.s.suring smile was all kindly, and not all forced; indeed, the tears were very close to the surface, and she could not trust herself to say much.

"Not cheek at all," was what she did say, with vigour. "Only--you'll change your mind."

With that her eyes glistened for an instant; and young Ives loved her himself. But neither of them was sorry when another gate grew large above the horses' ears, with posts and wires dwindling into perspective on either side to mark the eastern frontier of Big Bushy.

VIII

THE KIND OF LIFE

"Now what do we do, Mr. Ives?"

He had shut the gate and joined her on a sandy eminence, whence Moya was seeking to prove the excellence of her eyesight at the very outset. But the paddock had not got its name for nothing; it was overrun with the sombre scrub, short and thick as lichen on a rock; and from the open s.p.a.ces no sheep swam into Moya's ken.

"Turn sharp to the left, and follow the fence," replied the jackeroo.

"But I can't see a solitary sheep!"

"No, because you're looking slap into the paddock; that's the ground the others are going over, and they've already cleared it as far as we can see for the scrub. Each man takes his own line of country from this gate to the one opposite--seven miles away--and collects every hoof on the way. My line is the left-hand fence. Got to keep it in sight, and drive everything down it, and right round to the gate."

"Well, my line is yours," said Moya, smiling; and they struck off together from the track.

"It's the long way round, but we can't miss it," said Ives; "all we have to do is to hug the fence. Slightly inglorious, but I'd rather that than make a fool of myself in the middle."

"Is it so very difficult to ride straight through the bush?"

"The most difficult thing in the world. Why, only the other week----"

"I see some!"

The girl was pointing with her riding-switch, to make other use of it next instant. Her mount, a s.h.a.ggy-looking roan mare, as yet imperfectly appreciated by Moya, proved unexpectedly open to persuasion, and found her gallop in a stride. Ives followed, though he could see nothing but sand and saltbush in the direction indicated. Sheep there were, however, and a fair mob of them, whose behaviour was worthy of their kind. In all docility they stood until the last instant, then broke into senseless stampede, with the horses at their stubby tails.

"Round them up," cried Ives, "but look out! That mare can turn in her own length, and will when they do!"

The warning was timely to the very second: almost simultaneously the sheep doubled, and round spun both horses as in the air. Moya jerked and swayed, but kept her seat. Ives headed the mob for the fence, and for the moment the nonsense was out of them.

"Bravo, Miss Bethune!" said he. "You'll make a better bushman than ever I should."

Moya clouded like an April sky; the instant before she had been deliciously flushed and excited. Her companion, however, was happily intent upon his sheep.

"That's the way to start," he said, "with fifty or sixty at one swoop; you can work a mob like that; it's the five or six that give the trouble. I have reason to know! There's a corner of one of the paddocks in our South Block where a few of the duffers have a meet every morning, just because there's some water they can smell across the fence; won't draw to their own water at the opposite corner of their own paddock, not they! No, there they'd stick and die of thirst if one of us wasn't sent to rout them out. It was my billet every day last week, and a tougher one I never want. One time there was less than half a dozen of 'em: think of driving five weak sheep through eight or nine miles of scrub without a dog! It would be ten miles if I followed both fences religiously; but I'm getting so that I can cut off a pretty fair corner.

Yes, it's pretty hard graft, as they say up here, a day like that; but your water-bag holds nectar, while it lasts; and may your wedding-cake taste as good as the bit of browny under a pine, Miss Bethune!"

"What's browny?" asked Moya hastily.

"Raisins and baking-powder," said Ives, with a laugh; "but I've got enough for two in my pocket, so you shall sample it whenever you like.

By the way, aren't you thirsty yet?"

Moya was.

"It's the dust from the sheep, which you profess to relish, Mr. Ives."

"Only because it's like no other dust," explained the connoisseur. "And water-bag water's like no other kind."

The canvas bag was wet and heavy as he detached it from the saddle and handed it to Moya after drawing the cork from the gla.s.s mouthpiece; and from the latter Moya drank as to the manner born, the moist bag shrinking visibly between her hands.

"Steady!" cried Ives, "or we shall perish of thirst before we strike the gate. Well, what do you think of it?"

"A little canva.s.sy, but I never tasted anything cooler, or more delicious," said Moya in all sincerity, for already the sun was high, and the dry heat of it stupendous.

The jackeroo sighed as he replaced the cork after a very modest sip.

"Ah!" said he, "I wish we were taking sheep to water in the paddock I was telling you about! Long before you get to their water, you strike a covered-in tank, that is if you cut off your corner properly and hit the other fence in the right place. It's really more like a well, without much water in it, but with a rope and a bucket with a hole in it. That bucket's the thing! You fill it a b.u.mper, but it runs out faster than it comes up, and you're lucky if you can pour a winegla.s.sful into the crown of your hat; but that winegla.s.sful's sweeter than the last drop from the bag; it's sweeter than honey from the honeycomb, and I shall say so all my life!"

The boy's enthusiasm was very hard on Moya. It p.r.i.c.ked every impression deep in her heart for ever; she caught the contagion of his acute receptivity, upon which the veriest trifles stamped themselves with indelible definition; and it was the same with her. She felt that she should never quite lose the sharp sensations of this one day of real bush life, her first and her last.

Down the fence they fell in with frequent stragglers, and the mob absorbed them in its sweep; then Moya made a sortie to the right, and Ives lost sight of her through the cloud of dust in which she rode, till the beat of hoofs came back with a scuttle of trotters, and the mob was swollen by a score at least, and the thickening cloud pierced by Moya radiant with success. Her habit was powdered as with sullen gold, and the brown gold streamed in strands from her adorable head. Ives worshipped her across the yellow gulf between their horses.

"Where's the dog?" she asked. "I'm certain that I heard one barking."

He turned his head and she heard it again, while the lagging rearguard broke into a run.

"Yet you say you are no bushman!" remonstrated Moya. "No wonder you can do without a four-wheeled dog!"