“That’s hitting below the belt,” he said, and rose abruptly. “And you’ve missed your best argument. To travel fast and far is not everything; it may be a very little thing compared to a corner in a dark humpy; and the ‘warm hearthstone’ be worth far more than all the ‘high hopes.’”
Then he said good night smoothly, but abruptly, and went. And Ess that night was not a little thoughtful—and sorry.
She was afraid that he might stay away this last night, and because all the time in camp had been so happy for her, she had no wish for him to take away unhappy thoughts of it.
So she scribbled her note, “Come over to-night. Sorry I was rude last night, but remember our compact. E.L.,” and folded it and wrote his name boldly on the back, and gave it to her uncle to read and to carry to Steve. “I was a little unkind last night, uncle,” she said, “and I don’t want to be that.”
When he came over this last night, she smiled at him and asked “Have I apologised enough for my rudeness?” and “The compact is more to me than the rudeness,” he told her.
“Very well,” she said gaily. “Now I’ve an endless string of questions to ask. Uncle here never understands that I don’t know as much about sheep and the rest of it as he does, and he gives the most meagre information. Now you tell me all sorts of wonderful things—not too wonderful, I hope. I always had my doubts about the stories of the foxes biting the tongues out of the live lambs, and not making another mark on them. Is that strictly true, uncle?”
“Too true, unfortunately,” said Scottie. “Ye’ll see plenty o’ them if ye see a lambin’ season here.”
“How perfectly horrible,” she said. “But I wanted to ask about this drive. How do you do it? Do you men walk behind or ride?”
“We ride, thank Heaven,” said Steve, fervently. “I tell you my legs are aching to get a grip on a saddle again. This sheep work doesn’t suit me, and I’m sick of the sight and sound and stench of the brutes. Give me a good horse on the hillsides, and the cattle charging to—er—billy-oh, and there’s something in it.”
“Never mind the cattle now,” she said; “tell me about the sheep. Can I help drive them?”