There was a blithe recklessness in his voice. He swept her the bow that was considered gallant in the old country.
Steve appeared in the doorway.
"Are you going now?" she asked.
He nodded.
"But I must give you some bread and milk to take with you," she said. "It will be a long time before you strike Middleton's. It was there I was thinking you might make for at first. It's across the ranges to the east. If you follow the track across the clearing, you will find a stock route. You've only to keep along that and it will bring you to the station. It's four or five days' journey from here, I think, and maybe there'll be a job with cattle there. Drovers are being wanted everywhere—they were when we came up from the Port nearly a year ago."
"Yes," he said, "we heard in the Island that every man in the country's wanting to be gold-hunting, and that the cattle-owners can't get beasts to the market. They're running off wild, where the stockmen have left them. We want any job that'll bring food and money to begin with, and they say men with cattle are not making too particular inquiries as to whose doing their drovin' so long as it's done."
She put Davey in his basket, and went back to the hut. When she reappeared, it was with some bread and a bottle of milk wrapped in a piece of bagging.
"You'll have no trouble about water, because there are creeks all through the hills," she said, as she put the bundle into his hand.
Steve had gone off without speaking to her. He was slouching towards the trees.
The tall man took the food from her. Their eyes met.