CHAPTER XIX.
When the men came back to Thunder Ridge, they found that Ess had gone down to the home station at Coolongolong. Sinclair, the boss, had been up in his sulky, and asked her if she was ready to go back with him.
“We won’t have room for half-a-dozen huge trunks, you know, Miss Lincoln,” he laughed. “You’ll have to pack close this time.”
“I’ve got everything I’ll need in one dress-basket, which will go under the seat,” she assured him. “I’ve had some lessons on the necessity of travelling light.”
She flushed a little to herself at the memory of the giving of that lesson and the buggy ride that had followed, and ran in to say good-bye to Aleck Gault.
“Good-bye, Miss Ess,” he said. “Don’t be away longer than you can help, and see if you can find some roses to bring back in your cheek. I’ll be getting into trouble with Ned Gunliffe if you don’t. He’ll be saying you’ve worn yourself to death doing sick-nurse.”
She bade him good-bye gaily enough, but went wishing that he and the others would not talk so about her in connection with Ned Gunliffe. She knew that she had no right to resent such talk or feel hurt by it, but the fact remained that she did, and again she found herself wishing that she had not agreed to their engagement being spoken of yet—she would not allow herself to wish that she had not consented to it at all.
She went out and took her seat in the sulky, and the boss laid his whip lightly across the trotters, and they spun through the gate and on down the rocky slope.
“And what are you thinking of the out-back country, Miss Lincoln?” he said. “You’ve seen a slice of it now.”
“I still think it’s rather dreadful,” she answered. “It seems so cruel. The way the poor sheep had to be handled and driven nearly made me sick, and then it was such a narrow escape they had after all.”