The sound of a woman laughing outside the hut broke the silence between them. Michael lifted his head to listen.
"Who's that?" he asked;
Potch did not reply. The blue dark of the night sky, bright with stars, was blank in the doorway.
"May I come in?" a woman's voice called. Her figure wavered in the doorway. Before either Potch or Michael could speak she had come into the hut. It was Maud, Jun Johnson's wife. She stood there on the threshold of the room, her loose, dark hair wind-blown, her eyes, laughing, the red line of her mouth trembling with a smile. Her eyes went from Michael to Potch, who had turned away.
"My old nanny's awful bad, Potch," she said. "They say there's no one on the Ridge knows as much about goats as you. Will you come along and see what you can do for her?"
Potch was silent. Michael had never known him take a request for help so ungraciously. His face was sullen and resentful as his eyes went to Maud.
"All right," he said.
He moved to go out with her. Maud moved too. Then she caught sight-of the piece of opal lying out from the other stones on the table.
"My," she cried eagerly, "that's a pretty stone, Michael!" She turned it back against the light, so that the opal threw out its splintered sparks of red and gold.
"Just been noodlin' over some old scraps ... and came across it," Michael said awkwardly.