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It was late in September when Dan came in, and four weeks slipped away with the concerns of cattle and cattle-buyers and cattle-duffers, and as we moved hither and thither the water-melons leafed and blossomed and fruited to Billy's delight, and Cheon's undisguised amazement and the line party, creeping on, crept first into our borders and then into camp at the Warlochs, and Happy Dick's visits, dog-fights, and cribbage became part of the station routine.
Then while Happy Dick was assuring us that "both Warlochs were bankers," the Sanguine Scot rode in through the slip-rails at the North track, waving his hat in greeting and with Bertie and Bertie's Nellie tailing along behind him. "Back again!" Mac called, light-hearted as a schoolboy just escaped from drudgery, while Bertie's Nellie, as a matter of course, was overcome with ecstatic giggles.
Then, mounting his waiting horse, he splashed through the creek again, and disappeared into the moonlit grove of pandanus palms beyond it. The waggons spelled for two days at the Warlochs, and we saw much of the "Macs."
With childlike impetuosity she had scampered along the four miles from the Warlochs, only to be overcome with unaccountable shyness. "Allo, missus!" was all she could find to say, and the remainder of the interview she filled in with wriggling and giggles.
"Bullocky come on," he called, waddling to the house and waking us from our first sleep; and as the deep-throated bell boomed out again the Maluka said drowsily: "The homestead's only won by a head. Mac's at the Warlochs." At "fowl-sing-out" we were up, and found Bertie's Nellie behind the black boys' humpy shyly peeping round a corner.
The boss did understand, and rode across to the Warlochs alone, to find a man as shy and reticent as a bushman can be, and full of dread lest the woman at the homestead would insist on visiting him. "You see, that's why he wouldn't come on," the mate said. "He couldn't bear the thought of a woman doing things for him "; and the Maluka explained that the missus understood all that.
"I've left him camped back there at the Warlochs"; and as the Maluka prepared remedies making up the famous Gulf mixture the man with grateful thanks, found room in his pockets and saddle-pouch for eggs, milk, and brandy, confident that "these'll soon put him right," adding, with the tense lines deepening about his mouth as he touched on what had brought them there: "He's been real bad, ma'am.
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