Mrs. Potter clasped her hands.
"He has taken his bridle," said Naomi, still in a deadly calm, "and he has set out to catch his horse. How he could do such a thing I can't conceive! He knows the run of our horse-paddock no more than you do. He has failed to find his horse, tried to come back, and got over the fence into Top Scrubby. You don't know what that means! Top Scrubby's the worst paddock we have. It's half-full of mallee, it's six miles whichever way you take it, and the only drop of water in it is the tank at the township corner. Or he may be in the horse-paddock all the time. People who don't know the bush may walk round and round in a single square mile all day long, and until they drop. But it's no good our talking here; wherever he is, I mean to find him."
As she spoke she caught her saddle from the rail across which she had placed it, and was for flinging it on to her horse again, when Mrs. Potter interposed. The girl was trembling with excitement. The sun was fast sinking into the sand and scrub away west. In half an hour it would be dark.
"And no moon till ten or eleven," said Mrs. Potter, with sudden foresight and firmness. "You mustn't think of it, miss; you mustn't, indeed!"
"How can you say that? Why should you stop me? Do you mean me to leave the poor fellow to perish for want of water?"
"My dear, you could do no good in the dark," said Mrs. Potter, speaking as she had not spoken to Naomi since the latter was a little girl. "Besides, neither you nor the horse is fit for anything more until you've both had something to eat and drink."
"It's true!"
Naomi said this in helpless tones and with hopeless looks. As she spoke, however, her eyes fastened themselves upon the crimson ball just clear of the horizon, and all at once they filled with tears. Hardly conscious of what she did or said, she lifted up her arms and her voice to the sunset.
"Oh, my poor fellow! My poor boy! If only I knew where you were—if only I could see you now!"