IN THE HUT
Glen Leigh was his name. At least he was down as such on the books, but
names were not of much account on his job; they might as well have been
numbers seeing they were mere indications of identity. He waited until
he was tired, although he had much patience. His throat was parched; his
skin burned; there was no shade. On his head, straight down, poured the
fierce sun. To look at it was blinding. It seared the eyes; sparks
danced when they turned to the earth again. He had no watch. In his hut
there was one, but he seldom wound it. He told the time by nature's
signs, and was never far out in his calculations.
"I've waited an hour. Damn the fellow. Why doesn't he come? He expects
me to do his work and my own too." He shrugged his shoulders. Jim Benny
was a mere lad compared with him.
"Poor young devil. What's he done that he should come to this? The sins
of the father, and so on."
A shadow flitted across the ground. He started. This was not a land of
shadows, except when rain clouds swept away the dazzling blue. He looked
around, then above. There was a small black cloud floating in the
brilliant sky; it looked like a balloon.
"Rain!" he exclaimed. "By all that's holy, rain."
There was a power of feeling in the word.
"Rain."
In lands where skies are dull, where moisture hangs in the air, where a
downpour spoils pleasure and provokes temper, the word rain has a very
different meaning. To Glen Leigh rain meant almost everything. There had
been none for over nine months, not a drop, and that small balloon-like
cloud that cast its shadows and startled him, was more welcome than a
shower of gold.
"It's curious," he muttered, "I've never seen it exactly like this. But
it must mean rain. God send it. We want it, we dried up sapless things.
Rain, Ping. Do you hear, old parchment, rain. And your coat'll be
dripping wet. There'll be grass, and you'll feel juice in your mouth
instead of dried leaves and twigs. Rain, Ping, rain!"
He gave the horse a sound smack, jerked up his head, and pointed to the
cloud rolling above.
A slight breeze came. Ping sniffed, inhaling it with delight, while an
anxious look of anticipation came into his eyes.
Glen watched the cloud as though his life depended on it, as thousands
of lives did. It was a peculiar phenomenon, a black patch steering
through a sea of blue. In its wake it left a trail, dull, streaking out,
and beyond the trail were more heavy clouds on the rain path. This
leader was the herald of the storm.
There was no moan, there was nothing to cause it, but presently the wire
fence seemed to buzz, and the rising wind came through it playing on
the strings a sort of sad harmony, but sweet music in the ears of the
man and horse.
A low rumbling sound proclaimed the advance of the clouds, and they
rolled along in battalions blotting out the sunlight; the relief to the
eyes was immense. He waited, but Jim Benny did not come. He almost
forgot about him in his anxiety over the approaching rain.
A crack straight above his head, which echoed over the plain, was
followed by a burst of water which deluged him and Ping in a few
minutes. Both gasped with relief. They opened their mouths, and the
refreshing water cooled them; they had not had such a soaking for
months. The land responded to the rain. He fancied he saw the blades of
grass already shooting; he knew they would be there in a matter of
twenty-four hours. He mounted Ping and rode to his hut. It was no use
waiting any longer for Jim Benny; he would see him next day. Still he
wondered what had come to him, and felt a bit uneasy. He liked Jim,
although he seldom spoke more than a few words to him. Perhaps it was
the mystery surrounding him which appealed to him; he was a mysterious
man himself.
The rain poured down as he rode along. Ping's ambling pace soon covered
the ground, and he reached his hut in a shorter time than usual.
The door was wide open. Someone had been there in his absence. He
smiled; the intruder would not have had a very rich find. A few of his
provisions might be gone; the poor devil was welcome to that.
He was always cautious, for he was accustomed to face danger. There was
no telling what sort of desperate, hunted character had found his way
there, so he handled his revolver as he went in. Lying on his bunk he
saw a bundle of clothes, or what looked like it. Quietly he stepped up,
then started back in amazement. It was no sundowner, not even a man from
Boonara, out on the jag, who had wandered in a half-frenzied condition
so many miles. What he saw was a woman, a young, pretty woman, whose
face was lined with sorrow, whose cheeks were sunken. The hands were
hanging down, thin, almost emaciated, showing the veins, a dull blue.
One leg drooped down the side. The boot was worn, and torn. The dress
over it was ragged. Her whole appearance denoted the utmost distress,
hardship, exhaustion. She hardly breathed, although he saw her bosom
slightly heave and fall. She was in a pitiable plight indeed.
Glen Leigh was so wonder-struck at this strange sight that he stood
staring at her for some time, until Ping roused him by poking his head
in at the door, asking in his dumb way for food. Even the woman, lying
so strangely there, did not cause him to delay. Ping was a good comrade;
he must be attended to. He went round to the back of the hut, where
there was a lean-to shed, and Ping followed him. There was a little
precious hay still left, which he had secured for the horse at Boonara
at a fabulous price, panning out, if reckoned up, at about a hundred
pounds a ton. It had been brought down the river on one of the puffing,
snorting, little steamers, and deposited at the small staging, to be
left till called for, and fetched by Bill Bigs at his leisure. Ping
sniffed this small portion of evil-smelling stuff with satisfaction. He
had never known better fare, for he had been bred in the wilds, and
brought up anyhow, on anything. His dam had very little milk for him;
she had nothing to make it with. When his dam deserted him, or he left
her to go on his own, he wandered about, living precariously until he
was six years old. Then some master on two legs caught him, and Ping
began to learn the effects of contact with humanity. Ping's life had not
been a happy one until he passed into Glen Leigh's hands. With the
wisdom of the horse he discovered the great change in ownership, and
wondered at it. He followed Leigh about like a dog; there was no
bucking, biting, squealing, kicking against the pricks. He settled down
to a humdrum existence with a feeling of glorious content.
As Glen Leigh stood for a few moments eyeing Ping he compared him with
the woman lying in his hut. There was a similarity between their lives.
Both had been ill-used, and both came into his possession. Into his
possession? What on earth was he to do with the woman? Ping was all
right. He had bought him for a trifle. But the woman. It was quite a
different thing. She was in his hut, and part of his household for the
night. What must he do with her?
"Eat your supper, Ping. I'll go and see to the other one," he said, and
went back to his "front door."
He entered softly. She was still sleeping. He sat down on a log and
watched her.
How had she come there? She must have tramped miles. From Boonara of
course, but he did not remember seeing her there. He smiled at the
thought. He seldom gave more than a passing glance to people in the
township. He was hardly likely to have noticed her sufficiently to
recognise her now. If she came from Boonara, why had she left the place
and wandered all these miles? Was it by chance she had struck his hut?
Of course, it must have been. No doubt she saw the rainstorm coming, and
seeing the hut at the same time hurried in for shelter.
She was not an ordinary working-woman, he saw that, and cudgelled his
brains to find out how she came into the country at all.
She must belong to somebody, but to whom?
He knew of women who had lost their reason in solitudes, and had not
wondered at it. The country was only fit for blacks, and even they
shunned it, the few of them that were left after the white man's march.
Had she come along with some squatter, when he had been making a visit
to Bathurst, or Bourke, or even Sydney or Melbourne? That was a possible
solution, but highly improbable. There was only one large station near
enough to this place, from which she could have tramped. Its owner was
Craig Bellshaw, of Mintaro Station, and he was not the sort of man to
drive a woman away by ill-treatment, quite the contrary.
She stirred. He listened. She was muttering, but he could not catch the
words. He got up and leaned over her.