Poor old Broody! we saw nothing of her for days, but when next we heard her, she was announcing to all the world that she had taken Bett-Bett’s advice and had “gone and laid an egg.”
Bett-Bett appeared, grinning wisely, and said—
“That one hen no more broody now, Missus.”
I said that she might have the egg for herself, so she took it and roasted it in the fire. Before laying it on the hot ashes I noticed that she chipped a ring right round it with her finger nails, taking great care not to pierce the skin underneath the shell.
“What name likee that, Bett-Bett?” I asked.
Carefully covering it up with ashes, she answered, “Spose me no more break him, him break meself all about.”
Chapter 9
The Coronation “Playabout”
We were camped at the Bitter Springs on the Roper River, about fifteen miles from home, and had just shut up a big mob of cattle in the yards.
We had been “out bush” for a couple of weeks, riding from camp to camp, and mustering as we went. Bett-Bett was with us for her promised treat, and, as the head stockman said, was having “a wild and woolly time.” Perched straddle-legs on an old stock-horse, with the stirrup-irons wedged firmly between her little bare toes, she had had many a wild gallop after the cattle; and that, and everything else, was better than her wildest dreams of camping out.
As we rode from the yards to our camp, one of the men said: