“I’ve good men, Mackellar. Good men. There’s not a lad amongst them wouldn’t spend his last ounce to win through. It helps an old man, Miss Lincoln, to feel that good men are at his back to hammer things through. It helps a lot—a lot.”
He dropped the whip lightly on his horses.
“I’m going to have a look at Number Seven tank, Mackellar,” he said. “Good-bye just now, Miss Lincoln. Cheer the boys up. A woman can always do that, and it all helps—all helps.”
He slacked his reins, and the trotters sprang forward with a jerk and a rush.
“Poor old man,” said Ess. “And poor Mrs. Sinclair. Uncle, you will tell me if there’s anything I can do to help. I would so like to.”
CHAPTER VI.
The chiefs had met in council, and cast their plans, and outlined their campaign. The council itself was not an impressive affair, although large issues hung on it; in fact, it had a decidedly casual appearance. The boss was there, sitting in his sulky and leaning out, resting heavily on one arm. The manager stood with his foot on the step, and his fingers drumming a tattoo on his knee, and Scottie slowly and carefully whittled tobacco from a flat cake, and hardly raising his eyes from the operation.
They all looked as if they had met by chance, and were lazily passing the time of day. From the shade of her tent, Ess watched them stand so for ten minutes, and wondered why they idled there. The boss was not given to idling, she knew. Too heavy to walk or ride at a rapid pace, he relied on his trotters and his sulky to get him over the ground, and she rarely saw him that he was not tearing off somewhere or sitting with the reins gathered up ready to move on, while the horses gleamed with sweat, and their sides heaved quickly.
But he stood there now for fully ten minutes, and then Ess saw the council break up. Casual it may have looked, but actually it decided the fate of some twenty to thirty thousand sheep, the ownership of Coolongolong station, and—if she had only known it—incidentally, of Ess’s own life.