He and the rest of the men continued to "sling off," as they said, at Bully and Roy O'Mara as they saw fit, nevertheless.
The summer had been a mild one; it passed almost without a ripple of excitement. There were several hot days, but cool changes blew over, and the rains came before people had given up dreading the heat. Several new prospects had been made, and there were expectations that holes sunk on claims to the north of the Punti Rush would mean the opening up of a new field.
Michael and Potch worked on in their old claim with very little to show for their pains. Paul had slackened and lost interest as soon as the fitful gleams of opal they were on had cut out. Michael was not the man to manage Rummy, the men said.
Potch and Michael, however, seemed satisfied enough to regard Paul more or less as a sleeping partner; to do the work of the mine and share with him for keeping out of the way.
"Shouldn't wonder if they wouldn't rather have his room than his company," Watty ventured, "and they just go shares with him so as things'll be all right for Sophie."
"That's right!" Pony-Fence agreed.
The year had made a great difference to Potch. Doing man's work, going about on equal terms with the men, the change of status from being a youth at anybody's beck and call to doing work which entitled him to the taken-for-granted dignity of being an independent individual, had made a man of him. His frame had thickened and hardened. He looked years older than he was really, and took being Michael's mate very seriously.
Michael had put up a shelter for himself and his mates, thinking that Potch and Paul might not be welcome in George and Watty's shelter; but George and Watty were loth to lose Michael's word from their councils. They called him over nearly every day, on one pretext or another. Sometimes his mates followed Michael. But Rouminof soon wearied of a discussion on anything except opal, and wandered off to the other shelters to discover whether anybody had struck anything good that morning. Potch threw himself on the ground beside Michael when Michael had invited him to go across to George and Watty's shelter with him, and after a while the men did not notice him there any more than Michael's shadow. He lay beside Michael, quite still, throwing crumbs to the birds which came round the shelter, and did not seem to be listening to what was said. But always when a man was heatedly and with some difficulty trying to disentangle his mind on a subject of argument, he found Potch's eyes on him, steady and absorbing, and knew from their intent expression that Potch was following all he had to say with quick, grave interest.
Some people were staying at Warria during the winter, and when there was going to be a dance at the station Mrs. Henty wrote to ask Rouminof to play for it. She could manage the piano music, she said, and if he would tune his violin for the occasion, they would have a splendid band for the young people. And, her letter had continued: "We should be so pleased if your daughter would come with you."
Sophie was wildly excited at the invitation. She had been to Ridge race balls for the last two or three years, but she had never even seen Warria. Her father had played at a Warria ball once, years before, when she was little; but she and her mother had not gone with him to the station. She remembered quite well when he came home, how he had told them of all the wonderful things there had been to eat at the ball—stuffed chickens and crystallised fruit, iced cakes, and all manner of sweets.