The tank was almost dry. Only a tiny pool of foul, thick, muddy water remained in the middle of a stretch of clay that ran from dry, cracking cakes round the outside edge to slimy, greasy, sticky mud near the centre. For days now a gang of men had done little else but toil in the gluey mess, black and fouled to the waists and the armpits with hauling out the sheep that were too weak to extricate themselves. A small army of men worked at top pressure cutting down the trees—all the men of the station and extra hands hired in the township. They lived in calico tents that shone white in the glare of the sun, and at nights their fires flickered and danced in the darkness. All day long the ring of the axes and the wail of the sheep went on under the pitiless sun; the dust lifted lazily, and eddied thick under the feet of everything that moved; the mirage danced and quivered out on the plains.
Ess was fascinated with it all—fascinated, and day by day growing more fearful. She was coming to understand better what lay behind all this activity of man and placid indifference of Nature. She could appreciate better what every twenty-four hours meant as she saw the increasing numbers of the sheep that had to be dragged from the mud of the tank, and noted the thinning of the remaining trees, and she began to fear this cruel, relentless sun, and scorching air, and hot, dry barren earth.
The boss was whirling past her tent when he saw her, and pulled his horses down to a fretful walk.
“You’re looking tired, my dear,” he called. “Don’t let the sun get you down, you know. Come over to the station any time. We’re making a move to-morrow, back to the hills. It’s the last ditch you know, but we’ll win through at that, we’ll hope. We’re not beaten yet—not beaten yet,” and he slacked his reins and disappeared in a smother of dust.
Ess sent a scribbled note to Steve that night, asking him to come over, as they would be moving off next day.
Steve had dropped in on their camp-fire circle on several of the past nights. Ess made welcome any of the men who cared to come and sit and chat with her and her uncle, for the old boss’s words stuck in her mind. “Cheer the boys up—it all helps” he had said, so she was doing the little she could to help.
Most of the men were shy and quiet, but she set herself to draw them out, and led them to talk about the sheep, and the weather, and their work—things they knew well, and were interested in, and at home with, and could make talk on.
And Steve came over alone, or with the others, and every time he came she was a little the more glad of his coming.
His wit was so keen and his tongue was so sharp that she enjoyed talking with him, and the play and fencing of words and ideas brightened and livened her, she told herself.
Usually, she had to admit ruefully, she had the worst of the bouts of fence, and only the night before she had again suffered defeat.