Suddenly she discovered that she was not doing this exactly. She had not consciously diverged, and yet her leader was bearing down upon her with a scowl.
"Why don't you follow me?" he cried. "Do you want to get bushed in Blind Man's Block?"
"I wasn't thinking," replied Moya. "It must have been the horse."
Bovill seized the bridle.
"It's a fool of a horse!" said he. "Why, we're quite close to the fence, and it wants to head back into the middle of the block!"
Moya remarked that she did not recognise the country.
"Of course you don't," was the reply. "You came the devil of a round, but I'm taking you straight back to the fence. Trust an old hand like me; I can smell a fence as a sheep smells water. You trust yourself to me!"
Moya had already done so. It was too late to reconsider that. Yet she did begin to wonder somewhat at herself. That hairy hand upon the bridle, it lay also rather heavily on her nerves. And the mallee shrub showed no signs of thinning; the open spaces were as few as ever, and as short; on every hand the leaves seemed whispering for miles and miles.
"We're a long time getting to that fence," said Moya at length.
The convict stopped, looked about him in all directions, and finally turned round. In doing so his right hand left the bridle, but in an instant the other was in its place. Moya, however, was too intent upon his face to notice this.