“Well, anyway, I hope I’ve made it clear I don’t want any love business between us,” he said. “So is there any reason we shouldn’t just be plain friends without any frills? Of course if you’re afraid of falling in love with me—” and he paused suggestively.
“You put it rather cunningly,” she laughed. “If I won’t be friendly it’s because I’m afraid of you, and....”
“Is there any reason you shouldn’t be, then?” he asked.
“No,” she said slowly. “Except that you have rather a—well, your reputation, you know. That isn’t meant unkindly, but if we’re going to be friendly, we must be frank.”
“Surely,” agreed Steve, heartily. “But it will take more than my reputation to smirch you. And although mine is nothing to me, I can assure you yours is. You can trust me that far, in spite of what you may have heard of me.”
“I’ll trust you,” she said, and held out her hand impulsively. “We’ll be friends then.”
He took her hand and shook it. “And I’ll ask nothing better,” he said. “Now there are the mulga trees ahead of us. You know we’re cutting them down to feed the sheep on.”
“Yes, I know,” she said; “Uncle told me all about it. He called this country a battlefield in describing it to me, and he said the mulga was almost the last ammunition you had left to carry on the fight with.”
“Almost,” Steve said, “and the hills are our last trenches. When the mulga gives out we’ll have to retreat to them, and that’s going to be a bad business. The sheep are too weak to travel far, and it’s a long way for them.”
A faint wavering cry came across the flats to their ears.