His manner was distinctly apologetic, and he seemed anxious to give as little trouble as possible.
“Oh! you stop here,” said the Bo’sun. “I’ll have you made an honorary member. They’ll do you all right here.”
“That’s awfully good of you. Thanks very much indeed.”
“Oh! not at all. You’ll find the club not so bad, and a lot better than where you’re going with old Grant. He’s a regular demon to make fellows work. It’s pretty rough on the stations sometimes.”
“Ah! yes; awf’lly rough, I believe. Quite frightened me, what I heard of it, don’t you know. Still, I suppose one must expect to rough it a bit. Eh, what!”
“Charlie Gordon will he here in a minute,” said the Bo’sun. “He can tell you all about it. Here he is now,” he added, as the door swung open and the long-waited-for guest entered the room.
The newcomer was unmistakably a man from Far Out; tall, wiry-framed, and very dark, and so spare and lean of figure that he did not seem to have an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere. His face was as hard and impassive as a Red Indian’s, and looked almost black by contrast with his white shirt-front. So did his hands. He had thin straight hair, high cheek-bones, and a drooping black moustache. But the eyes were the most remarkable feature. Very keen and piercing they were, deep-set in the head; even when he was looking straight at anyone he seemed to be peering into endless space through the man in front of him. Such eyes men get from many years of staring over great stretches of sunlit plain where no colour relieves the blinding glare—nothing but dull grey clumps of saltbush and the dull green Mitchell grass.
His whole bearing spoke of infinite determination and self-reliance—the square chin, the steadfast eyes, telling their tale as plainly as print. In India he might have passed for an officer of native cavalry in mufti; but when he spoke he used the curious nasal drawl of the far-out bushman, the slow deliberate speech that comes to men who are used to passing months with the same companions in the unhurried Australian bush. Occasionally he lapsed into reveries, out of which he would come with a start and break in on other people’s conversation, talking them down with a serene indifference to their feelings.
“Come out to old man Grant, have you?” he drawled to Carew, when the ceremonies of introduction were over. “Well, I can do something better for you than that. I want a mate for my next trip, and a rough lonely hot trip it’ll be. But don’t you make any mistake. The roughest and hottest I can show you will be child’s play to having anything to do with Grant. You come with me.”
“Hadn’t I better see Mr. Grant first?”