"And the hut is unoccupied?" was her next.

"Quite; as a matter of fact, it's unfit for occupation."

"Yet you wanted me to drink the water!"

"That might have been all right; besides any water's better than none when you're as thirsty as I thought you were."

Moya said no more about her thirst; it was intolerable; but they must be getting near the gate at last. She was silent for a time, a time of imaginative torment, for her mind ran on the latter end of such sufferings as she was only beginning to endure. She was just uncomfortable enough to have a dreadful inkling of the stages between discomfort and death.

"It's a pity not to use the hut," she said at length.

"I believe it was more bother than the cla.s.s of water was worth,"

returned Ives. "Yes, now I think of it, I remember hearing that they couldn't get men to stay there. Blind Man's Block used to give them the creeps. They're frightfully superst.i.tious, these back-blockers!"

"I'm not surprised," said Moya, with a shudder. "I never want to see Blind Man's Block again, or the hut either."

"But you will, you know!" the jackeroo reminded her. And that put an end to the conversation.

Over a thousand sheep were at the gate waiting for them, with half a dozen horses and as many men. Of course Ives was the last to arrive with his mob, but the goodly numbers of the latter combined with the amazing apparition of Moya to save her friend from the reprimand he seldom failed to earn. Rigden came galloping to meet them, and for both men's sake Moya treated him prettily enough in front of Ives. Even through that day's coat of red, Rigden glowed, and told Ives that he should make something of him yet. His water-bag was not quite empty, and Moya had enough to make her long for more as she cantered with the bag to Ives, who had forged discreetly ahead.

"Don't let him know we went so long without, Mr. Ives!"

And his cracked lips were sealed upon the subject.

"Of course you cut off the corner, and didn't go right round by the hut?" said Rigden, riding up; and the jackeroo felt justified in speaking strictly for himself; and thought it so like Miss Bethune not to compromise him by saying how near to the hut they had been: for Moya said nothing at all.

"And now you shall see a count-out," cried Rigden, in better spirits than ever, "as soon as we've boxed the mobs."

"Boxed them!" cried Moya. "Where?"

"Joined them, I mean. To think of your coming mustering of your own accord, Moya!"

His voice had fallen; she did not lower hers.

"It's one of the most interesting days I ever had," she informed all within hearing; "now let me see the end of it, and I'll go back happy."

The adjective was not convincing, but Rigden would not let it dishearten him. The very fact of her presence was the end of his despair.

"I met one of our rabbiters, and arranged for tea at his tent," he said.

"He little expects a lady, but you'll have to come."

The prospect had material attractions which Moya was much too honest to deny. "Then make haste and count!" was what she said.

And that followed which appealed to Moya more than all that had gone before. The gate gaped wide, and Rigden on foot put his back to one post. The rest kept their saddles, and began gently rounding up the mob, till it formed a pear-shaped island of consolidated wool, with the headland stretching almost to Rigden's feet. He turned and beckoned to the jackeroo.

"Tally, Ives!"

"Tally, sir," the jackeroo rejoined, and urged his horse to the front.

He had managed to drift back to Moya's side, to ensure her complete appreciation of a manoeuvre he delighted in, but at the word of command he was gone without a glance, and visible responsibility settled on his rigid shoulders.

Real dogs kept the mob together, but the head stood stubborn at the gate, with none to lead the way till Rigden touched the foremost fleece with his toe and the race began. Slowly and singly at the start, as the first grains slip through the hour-gla.s.s; by wondering twos and threes, as the reluctant leaders were seen alive and well in the farther paddock; thereafter by the dozen abreast, so far as the ordinary eye could judge; but Rigden was the only one that knew, as he stood in the gateway, beating time to the stampede with raised forefinger, and nodding it with bent head.

"Hundred!" he called after the first half-minute, and "hundred!" in quarter of a minute more, while Ives raised a hand each time and played five-finger exercises with the other hand upon his thigh. At the same time Rigden vanished in a yellow cloud, whence his voice came quicker and thicker, crying hundred after hundred above the dull din of a scuffling and scuttling as of a myriad mice heard through a microphone.

And the dusty fleeces disappeared on one side of the cloud to reappear on the other until all were through.

"And seventy-two!" concluded Rigden hoa.r.s.ely. "How many, Ives?"

"Two thousand one hundred and seventy-two," replied the jackeroo promptly.

"Sure?"

"Certain, sir."

"And so am I," said Moya, riding forward, "for I kept tally too. Yes, the hundreds are all right; but nothing will convince me that they were hundreds; you might as well count the falling drops in a shower!"

Rigden smiled as he wiped the yellow deposit from his scarlet face.

"I may be one per cent. out," said he; "but if I'm more I deserve the sack."

So Moya allowed that it was the most marvellous performance her own eyes had ever seen; and these were full of an unconscious admiration for Rigden and his prowess; but Rigden was conscious of it, and his chin lifted, and his jaw set, and his burnt face glowed again.

Two of the musterers were told off to take the sheep to their new tank, for their own dust had set them bleating for a drink; the rest lit their pipes and turned their horses' heads for home; but Ives was instructed to stop at the rabbiter's camp and tell him whom to expect.

"It would be unfair to spring you on the poor chap," said Rigden to Moya.

Ives also had a last word to say to her, though he had to say it before the boss.

"That was something to see, wasn't it, Miss Bethune? Doesn't it make you keener than ever on the bush? Or isn't that possible?"

And he took off his wideawake as he shot ahead; but Rigden and Moya rode on together without speaking.

IX

PAX IN BELLO

In happier circ.u.mstances the rabbiter's camp would have had less charm for Moya. Its strings of rabbit-skins would have offended two senses, and she would have objected openly to its nondescript dogs. The tent among the trees would never have struck Moya as a covetable asylum, while the rabbiter himself, on his haunches over the fire, could not have failed to impress her as a horrid old man and nothing else. He was certainly very ragged, and dirty, and hot; and he never said "sir," or "miss," or "glad to see you." Yet he could cook a chop to the fraction of a turn; and Moya could eat it off his own tin platter, and drink tea by the pint out of a battered pannikin, with no milk in it, but more brown sugar than enough. The tea, indeed, she went so far as to commend in perfectly sincere superlatives.

"Oh, the tea's not so dusty," said the rabbiter grimly; "it didn't ought to be at the price you charge for it in your store, mister! But the tea don't matter so much; it's the water's the thing; and what's the matter with the water in these here tanks, that you should go shifting all your sheep, Mr. Rigden?"

This was obviously Rigden's business, and Moya, p.r.i.c.king an involuntary ear, thought that he might have said so in as many words. But Rigden knew his type, and precisely when and in what measure to ignore its good-humoured effrontery.

"It's the sort of thing to do in time, or not at all," said he. "You catch me wait till my sheep begin to bog!"

"Bog!" cried the rabbiter. "Who said they were beginning to bog? I tell you there's tons of good water in this here tank; you come and look!"