CHAPTER III
None of the men saw Ess Lincoln that night. She was dead beat, Scottie said, and had turned in after some tea and tucker. Next morning they were all up and away about their work before Ess was up or out, but after supper that evening Scottie brought her over and introduced her to the men.
Steve Knight was not there at the time. He had been over to the head station, and the men were either in their bunks or getting ready for them when he came in. But if he did not see her, at least he heard enough of her.
“’Ullo, Steve,” said Jack Ever, as soon as Steve set foot inside the door. “You’ve missed the ’bus. She was over ’ere to-night, and we was all interdooced.”
“I’ve missed my supper,” said Steve. “And that’s more important at this moment. See if you can hook me out some tucker, Blazes, and about a gallon of tea. I’m dry as the drought itself.”
“Wait till you see ’er,” said Whip Thompson. “You’ll think different. She’s a bonzer; she’s – ”
“Let’s get a wash, Whip,” said Steve, picking up a tin pail and making for the door, “and then you can sing a song about it.”
“We’re to start cutting the mulga trees for the sheep to-morrow,” he said when he came back. “I just brought word back to Scottie.”
“Did you go to the ’ouse?” said Jack. “Did you see ’er then?”
“No, Scottie came to the door. He asked me to go in, but I said No, I wanted some supper.”
“You was both ends an’ the middle of a fool then,” said Jack, warmly. “You could ’ave seen ’er.”
“I wasn’t hungry to see her,” said Steve, calmly, “and I was hungry for my supper.” He seated himself and commenced to eat.
“It’s getting near the finish for the sheep down there,” he remarked, “and there isn’t mulga enough to keep them going long.”
“D’you think we’ll have to camp up in the mulga paddocks?” said Aleck Gault.
“Good Lord, I ’opes not,” said Jack Ever, in dismay. “We won’t see ’er till next Sunday if we does.”
“The boss said he’d be coming over here in a day or two,” said Steve; “I expect we’ll be shoving the sheep back here on the hills when the mulga gives out.”
“Does the boss know she’s ’ere?” asked Whip Thompson.
“The boss was too busy thinking about his sheep to bother, I expect,” said Steve.
“I’m goin’ to break in a ’orse for ’er,” said Whip Thompson. “None of ’em would stand a skirt on ’is back, I s’pose.”
“I’d try the Roman if I was you, Whip,” said Aleck Gault.
“He’s quiet, but he’s an ugly brute,” claimed Ned Gunliffe. “You want a nicer-looking crock for her.”
“She can ride all right – she tole me,” said Darby the Bull.
“I might len’ ’er my ’orse,” said Blazes, reflectively. Now Blazes’ horse was the standing joke of the Ridge. The men swore he’d been crossed with a sheep and was born too tired to feed himself. But Blazes thought a lot of his horse, and was most jealous of anyone using it, although he had little riding to do himself. His offer to lend it made the men laugh, but it made Steve open his eyes.
“You too, Blazes,” he said. “The whole camp seems to have gone crazy over this girl.”
“Reckon you’ll go crazy too when you see ’er,” said Jack Ever.
“What’s she like then?” said Steve. “Let’s hear all about her, and then we may get talking of other things. Now then, Jack – fire ahead.”
“She’s pretty as a pictur in a gilt frame,” said Jack. “She ’as ’ands like a duchess, and a figure like a green goddess.”
Steve spluttered over his tea. “Didn’t know there was an assortment of colours in the goddess line, Jack,” he said. “But we’ll let it go at Greek goddess.”
“I read it in a book somewheres,” said Jack. “One o’ Nat Gould’s, an’ the chap was ravin’ about the gal’s figure.”
“She has a figure that makes you think how well she’d look on a horse,” said Whip Thompson. “And she carries her head as high, and steps as dainty, as a thoroughbred.”
“Come on, Darby,” laughed Steve. “You next.”
Darby the Bull pondered. “When I’m drunk – or half drunk – I always see every woman’s face sort o’ soft an’ sweet an’ – an’ – happy. I see this gal like that – an’ I was sober … I didn’t think,” he finished reflectively, “a man could ever see one like that – when he’s sober.”
Steve chuckled. “You’re a poet, Darby,” he said, “though you’ll not believe it. But all this doesn’t tell a man much. Is she short or tall, dark or fair, young or old? Eh, Aleck, you’ve observing eyes.”
“Tall, or tallish,” said Aleck Gault. “Slender, dark, brown eyes, age about 20, very pretty.”
“That’s better,” said Steve. “Can you add to it, Ned?”
“A lady,” said Ned, quietly, “speech, manners, and dress of a lady.”
Blazes pounded the table. “You ’ark to me, Steve, an’ I’ll tell ye. Them an’ their river or Creek godses, an’ walk like a ’orse, an’ a face like when you’ve got the rats, an’ speech o’ a lady. She didn’t make no speech. Jus’ said ’how d’ye do,’ an’ chatted pleasant like. She don’t walk – she floats, just as gentle as a chip in a puddle. She ’as eyes as big as a bullock’s, an’ a pleadin’ look in ’em like you see in a sheep’s when its throat’s cut. ’Er ’air’s black as the bottom o’ an old billy-can, an’ shiny as a sweatin’ nigger. She ’as a voice like the low notes o’ a tin whistle, an’ a skin as clear as the white o’ a hard-boiled egg an’ as soft as well-dressed kangaroo hide. She’s a beauty from the tip o’ ’er shoe-string to the button on ’er ’at. When she’s speakin’ to you, you feels you wants to go to church, an’ give your money to the poor. Th’ only thing as beats me,” he finished reflectively, “is ’ow she come to ’ave Scottie Mackellar for a uncle.”
“Thanks, Blazey,” said Steve, his voice bubbling with laughter. “Now I know exactly what she does look like. And for the peace of all our minds, I hope she won’t stay long on Thunder Ridge. I must tell her so when I see her.”
“You go gentle, Steve,” said Jack Ever. “Don’t you go hintin’ that to ’er. We all ’opes she stays years an’ is ’appy as long as she’s ’ere.”
“You all seem to have fallen up to the neck in love with her already,” said Steve, commencing to pull off his boots. “I suppose I’ll have to do ditto to be in company with you.”
Jack Ever was sitting up in bed smoking. He took the pipe from his mouth and fixed his eyes on an empty corner of the room.
“Mebbe we’re in love wi’ her, meanin’ nothin’ disrespec’ful by the word. Mebbe there’s some o’ us ’ere will get to love ’er real, an’ hope for ’er to love ’im. I reckon the rest will wish ’im luck if that ’appens – long as he plays a straight game. But God ’elp the man as tries to fool ’er.”
The other men were carefully avoiding his eyes, but Steve Knight knew as well as if he had been addressed by name that the warning was spoken to him.
There were grunts of acquiescence from some of them.
“That’s right – no foolin’,” said Whip Thompson. “Straight game,” murmured Blazes, and Darby the Bull growled a “That’s right.”
“Shut it, you fools,” said Aleck Gault from his bunk. “There’s nobody here that doesn’t know how to treat a decent girl decent when he meets her.”
“I should think Scottie Mackellar knows enough to look out for his niece, if she doesn’t herself,” said Steve Knight, smoothly. “But if she wants to play the fool d’you think she won’t do it in spite of all you self-appointed wet-nurses?” He dropped his sarcastic smoothness, and his voice took a more savage ring. “And if these elaborate warnings are aimed my way, you can go to the devil with them. I’ve grown out of Sunday Schools, and I’ve pleased myself for a long time back how I behave myself.”
He blew out the light and flung himself angrily on his bunk.
Next morning, when the men were saddling up in the paddock after breakfast, Ess Lincoln came out to wish them good morning.
“It’s too bad we haven’t got that horse ready for you, Miss Lincoln,” said Aleck Gault. “You might have ridden part way with us. This is the best time of the day for a canter. It’s hot later.”
“I’m takin’ Diamond down wi’ me, Miss,” Whip said. “And I’m going to put a blanket round my waist and mount ’im when we get down on the flat. I’ll have ’im broken to it in a day or two so you can ride ’im. ’E’s a good ’orse.”
“Thanks so much, Whip,” said Ess. “It doesn’t matter about this morning, really, because I have such a lot to do to get the house to my liking. My boxes came up yesterday, and I have to unpack and put the place tidy.”
“Sure you won’t be lonesome, Ess?” said Scottie. “I might drive you down in the buggy if you like.”
“No, uncle, thanks. I’ll be all right. I’ll have cook here to look after me, and perhaps if I’ve time and he’s not too busy, he’ll show me how he makes that cake – the brownie, you know, cook.”
“Course I will, Miss,” said Blazes, eagerly. “I’ll be makin’ it this afternoon, an’ you can come over any time.”
“All right,” said Scottie; “I’ll leave you to look after her, Blazes.”
“She’ll be all right,” said Blazes, importantly. “You leave me to see to that.”
“Blazes was saying he’d lend you old Shuffle-foot, his horse, Miss Lincoln,” said Ned Gunliffe. “He’d easy stand the skirt, and you might come with us after all.”
“No, no, Miss,” said Blazes, hastily. “I didn’t think when I spoke o’ that. He’d be sure to make a terrible bobbery if you mounted ’im with a skirt. Far better stop ’ere to-day, Miss.”
“All right, cook, but thank you for thinking of lending him all the same,” said Ess. “Where’s the other man – the one I haven’t seen except in the distance – Steve Knight, wasn’t it?” asked Ess as the men mounted, and Scottie placed his foot in the stirrup.
“They tell me he finished his breakfast first and went straight off,” said Scottie. “I don’t know what his hurry was, but he’s the sort o’ chap that does unexpected things.”
He swung himself into the saddle and gathered the reins up. “We’ll be back soon after sundown,” he said, “Ye’ll see him then most like.”
The others found Steve waiting for them at the dingo fence of the back paddock. He was sitting smoking, and as the others came near he opened the gate to let them through, closed it behind them, and joined them without any remark.
He rode beside Aleck Gault as they jogged along across the dusty flat, and when he pulled up to light his pipe again Gault pulled up and waited for him.
“What made you swallow breakfast and clear in such a hurry this morning, Steve?” said Gault as they moved on again.
Steve laughed shortly. “I hardly know,” he said; “or rather, it was because I didn’t want to meet that girl this morning, and I guessed she might come out. I hardly know why I didn’t want to see her though.”
“She was out,” said Aleck Gault, “to wish us good morning. But you can’t well avoid her always, Steve, and anyhow, why should you?”
“It was those cursed fools talking last night that upset me,” said Steve, “although I’m a fool to let it. I know I’m no stained-glass-window saint, Aleck, but I don’t quite see that everyone should jump to the conclusion that I can’t behave as anything but a blackguard to a girl. What sort of girl is she really?”
“You’ll like her, Steve,” said Aleck Gault, quietly.
“I hope not,” said Steve, shortly. “For her sake and my own. If I liked her I’d want to be seeing her and talking to her, and I’d do it as often as I wanted, in spite of that mammying lot. And they’d be hanging about and consulting with each other as to whether I was ‘playing straight’ or ‘fooling her,’ as they put it. Pah!” he finished with an expression of disgust.
“For two pins,” he went on presently, “I’d go right in and make myself infernally agreeable and worry the lives out of the lot of them.”
“That might be all right for you,” said Gault.
“But it wouldn’t do the girl much good to be having her name bandied round as one of your girls.”
“There you are,” said Steve, with an angry oath. “You’re as bad as the rest. I mustn’t speak to a girl, because it’ll smirch her reputation. To blazes with her. I don’t care if I never see her.” He put his hand on Gault’s knee as they rode side by side. “Look here, old mate, you know me, and you know if she’s a pretty girl and a smart girl, and all that, I’m bound to get making the pace with her and making violent love to her, just for the fun of it. I can’t help it somehow. So if this thing is going to be the dash nuisance it threatens to be, I’m going to get my cheque and clear out. Would you come with me again?”
“I’ll come with you, Steve,” said Gault. “But wait till you’ve seen her before you say anything.”
Steve threw back his head and laughed out. “Sounds funny, doesn’t it, Aleck, lad? Fly-by-Night running away from a girl he’s never seen. There’s some men I know – and girls too, for that matter – would think that something of a joke. But things might be worse, old owl. Here’s a bright summer morn, as the songs say, we’ve a good meal inside us, good horses below us, and a long day before us. So blow the girl, old son. Though I’m getting most fierce curious about her, and that’s a bad sign, isn’t it?”
Which was something very near what Ess had said to her uncle about him, if you remember.
CHAPTER IV
When they did meet, the encounter was not in the least like what Ess Lincoln had expected, and more or less planned with herself. She had made up her mind that Steve Knight had probably been completely spoiled by the women he had met. He was evidently a handsome man by all accounts, and had an all-conquering way with women, and would take it as a matter of course that she should add her share to the usual feminine admiration. No girl likes to think she is held cheaply, and Ess was determined she should not be. Besides which she was a good girl, as the expression has it, and took it to be her duty to be casual and distant to any man with the reputation she had heard this man bore.
Consequently, when she was standing talking to her uncle at the door next morning, and he called Steve Knight over to them, saying “I’ll just introduce ye to Steve, Ess,” she waited the meeting with a quietly reserved air, and an odd unaccountable little flutter of her pulse. But, to her surprise, he made no endeavour to impress her, or be particularly nice. In fact, on going over the interview to herself afterwards, she had to admit that he had been very much the reverse. He had merely taken her hand in a perfunctory grasp, quietly said “Pleased to meet you, Miss Lincoln, nice morning,” and then turning to Scottie had remarked that the men were ready and would they be going on. “Just gie them five minutes,” said Scottie, and Steve raising his hat said he would tell them so, asked Ess to excuse him, and walked briskly off.
He left Ess utterly bewildered. “Well, if that’s your ladies’ man, he strikes me as having a most unceremonious manner,” she said to Scottie, struggling between an inclination to laugh and be angry.
Scottie was a little surprised himself, but he merely grunted and made no remark.
Each night and morning for the rest of the week Ess was in the yard to wish the men good evening or good-bye as they came or went, and usually spent a few minutes chatting to one or the other of them. But she never chatted to Steve Knight, and it was impossible for her to help noticing that he did nothing more than raise his hat and murmur a conventional word, and then ignore her.
No girl likes to be ignored by a man, even a wicked man, and especially if he is good-looking as well as wicked. So Ess was annoyed, although she would have denied it indignantly if it had been suggested to her.
She saw very little of the men that week, as they were away from dawn to dusk, and coming in dead tired, did little more than eat their supper and go to bed.
Ess was looking forward to the Sunday, when Scottie and all the men would be resting at the Ridge, but it was with a sense of the most unmistakable disappointment that she heard that Steve Knight had gone off the night before to ride in to the township to spend the Sunday.
“He keeps a horse o’ his own,” said Scottie, “and of course he can do what he likes wi’ his Sunday. He’s made o’ steel an’ whipcord though, tae stand it as he does. He was warkin’ wi’ the best the whole of the day – an’ cuttin’ down trees in that sun isna easy wark lat me assure ye – he rides back here an’ has his supper, changes his clothes an’ his saddle, an’ starts off for the township. An’ he’ll ride back here on the Sunday nicht, just gettin’ here tae change again an’ eat his breakfast and start t’ ride out tae work wi’ the rest o’ us. He’s weel named Fly-by-Nicht.”
“What does he do there?” asked Ess.
“Oh, just drinkin’ maybe, or it micht be on some ploy wi’ a lassie.” Ess asked no more.
She looked curiously at Steve, though, on the Monday morning when she went out to see the men saddling up. He certainly seemed quite as fresh as anyone there, and greeted her with a cheerful nod. “Getting hot again, Miss Lincoln,” he said. “The night is the best time for riding just now. It was beautifully cool on the hills last night.” He turned and moved away without giving her a chance to reply.
“It’s rather fun in a way, Aleck,” he said to Gault that morning as they rode together down the path to the plains. “She doesn’t quite know what to make of me. I’ll bet anything you like that Scottie warned her I was a bad lot, and to have nothing to do with me. I could see it in her eye that morning I first met her. And it took the wind out of her sails when I treated her as if I didn’t care a rap whether she existed or not. And I suppose she thought I’d be shamefaced and afraid of her, knowing I was in town till late.”
“She must be rather sick of being stuck up there all day alone,” said Aleck Gault. “Blazes’ society must get rather monotonous in a week, and she sees little enough of the rest of us, and even of Scottie.”
“I know I’m getting mighty sick of the way the rest of the gang keep yarning about her night and day. And you’re near as bad as the rest, Aleck, boy.”
“Me,” said Gault, laughing; “I’m getting deeper and deeper in love with her every day. I’m more relieved than any of them that you haven’t come poking in, old buffalo. But what are you thinking of doing about leaving now?”
“Leave nothing,” said Steve, cheerfully. “I’m getting real interested. One of these days I’m going to dive right into the mob of you, and talk myself black in the face to her, in spite of you all. I’m wondering if she’ll snub me. Think she will?”
“Not she,” said Gault; “what on earth for?”
“Bet you,” laughed Steve. “Drinks on it, Aleck. Now, wait and see.”
The opportunity came that same night. When they came to the back paddock fence on the way home, they found Ess waiting for them on Diamond. Whip had had little difficulty in getting the horse used to the skirt, and after a few days he took no more notice of it than if he’d been used to it all his life, so Whip was ready to hand him over and see Ess mounted on the Sunday.
They rode quietly towards the Ridge, and Steve pushed his horse alongside her. “I must compliment you on your seat on a horse, Miss Lincoln,” he said.
He spoke rather loudly, and Ess felt a pang of anger. It sounded as if he was showing the others what an easy way he had with girls; but she was not one of these, and…
“I suppose I ought to say ‘Thank you,’” she answered evenly, “but I won’t because I don’t like compliments.” She was puzzled and rather resentful of the smile that twinkled on his face, and was quickly suppressed, and she turned her shoulder squarely to him and commenced speaking to Scottie.
“Looks like the drinks are on you, Aleck,” said Steve, grinning as he dropped back beside Gault. “But I must say I liked the cool way she turned me down.”
As she rode on, Ess had some compunctions about the way she had “turned him down,” and wondered once or twice if she had not misjudged him. If she had, she had been extremely rude as well as unfair. He gave her no opportunity of making amends on the way home, so, after she and Scottie had ridden to their own door and dismounted, she walked across with him to where the men were unsaddling and feeding their horses.
She walked straight up to Steve, and spoke clear enough for the other men to hear.
“I’m afraid I was horribly rude to you,” she said; “and I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
Steve was thoroughly astonished, and for a moment taken aback. Then he barely bowed his head to her. “That is very kind of you, Miss Lincoln. Kinder than I deserve, perhaps, but – thank you.”
“I feel better,” said Ess, lightly; “I hate being mean. Now, good night all.”
She walked back to the house with Scottie, feeling curiously elated and happy. “Did I do right?” she asked him.
“Hech, lassie,” said Scottie, smiling under his moustache. “How’s a mere man tae follow the workin’s o’ a woman’s mind? If ye think ye did right, then ye did. I wunnered some at your checkin’ him as ye did, for naething I could see.”
It was more than an hour after, when they had finished supper, and Ess had washed up and sat herself at the table where Scottie sat reading, that she went back to the subject. They had talked of other things between, but she picked up the conversation as if it had never been broken – which is significant if you come to think it out.
“I put him in rather an awkward position,” she said. “But he got over it most gracefully.”
Scottie looked at her a moment in silence. “Aye,” he said, vaguely but satisfactorily.
“Do you know,” Ess said, “I believe he is not as black as he has been painted.” She looked at him a little defiantly. “It’s horrid, being stand-offish and nasty to anyone, especially meeting him every day.” Scottie knew where she was now, but wisely attempted no argument.
“Aye,” he said again.
“So I’m just going to treat him the same as all the others,” she said. “And if he presumes on it, I think I’ll know how to stop him. He’s a gentleman, I believe, and won’t persist in ways a girl plainly shows she doesn’t like.”
“An’ what if they’re ways she does like?” asked Scottie, gently.
“Well?” she asked, the note of defiance a little more marked.
“‘Well,’ I hope,” said Scottie, gravely. “He’s a good enough lad at hairt, I believe, but he’s unstable as water wi’ wimmin folk – unstable as water.”
Ess laughed. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to fall in love with him. But I believe we’re going to be very good friends.”
Before she went to her bed that night she stood long looking out of her window.
“I’m not going to love him,” she said again to herself.
And that again was significant.
Over in front of the men’s hut Aleck Gault and Steve sat on the rail, after the others had gone to bed.
“You ought to pay the drinks after all, Steve,” said Gault. “She snubbed you all right, but she made a most handsome apology for it.”
“She did so,” said Steve, emphatically. “It took some grit to do that in front of the crowd, Aleck. I’m getting to like that girl. She’s something out of the ordinary.”
Aleck Gault smoked on in silence. “Any objections?” said Steve.
“You’re such an ass about girls, Stevie,” said Gault, cheerfully. “I suppose you’re going to fall in love as usual.”
“I never fell in love in my life – but once,” said Steve. “And that was lesson enough not to again. If I thought I was going to do that now, I’d clear out to-morrow.”
“You may not fall in love with them,” said Gault, “but they do with you – some of them, anyway. And somehow I wouldn’t like this girl to feel that way for any man that didn’t love her.”
“We’re gushing about love like a pair of sentimental old tabbies, or a page out of a woman’s novelette,” said Steve, contemptuously. “Love be blowed. The girls like a lark as well as I do, and that’s all.”
“If that’s how you feel about this one, best let her alone,” said Aleck Gault, slowly.
“Oh, shucks,” said Steve. “Anyway, I’ll try what it’s like to be friendly without making love.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard of something about Platonic friendship before, and the way it ends,” said Aleck, grinning at him.
“It won’t be any Platonic friendship basis then. Tell you what, I’ll start off by warning her that I’m an unmitigated blackguard, and that I have an infallible weakness for falling in love with every pretty girl I meet. And if I show any signs of the disease with her, will she please kindly bump me over the head with a half brick and chase me off the scenery. How’ll that do?”
“You might try it,” said Aleck Gault, reflectively. “Will you let me come along and rub in the warning of your character?”
“Surely,” assented Steve; “and we’ll refer her to Scottie, and each individual of the crowd for confirmation.”
“I think it’s likely you’ll be late at that,” said Aleck, drily. “She’ll have had it already.”
And in view of what he had just said, it was unreasonable of Steve Knight to feel annoyed because it might be so.