Miss Winfrey shuddered.
"And then?"
"Then they come back to work for another six months."
"And you take them back?"
"I should think I did—when they're good men like Cattle-station Bill! It's nothing. He'll be back at his hut by the end of the week. That's an understood thing. Then in another few months he'll want another cheque. And so on, year in and year out."
Miss Winfrey made no remark, but she turned her head and looked back. And the recumbent moleskins were still a white daub on the hotel verandah, for it was hereabouts that Pickering had mistaken them for the young woman's skirt. She watched them out of sight, and then she sighed.
"It's terrible!"
"You'll get used to it."
"Never! It's too awful. One ought to do something. You must let me see what I can do, Mr. Pickering. The poor men! The poor men!"
Mr. Pickering was greatly amused. He never meddled with his men. Their morals were not his concern. In the matter of their cheques his sense of responsibility ended with his signature. The cheques might come back endorsed by a publican who, he knew, must have practically stolen them from his men's pockets. But he never meddled with that publican.