“Oh, no! She knows how bad these Cape York blacks are, and would not be so reckless of her life as to come alone. Mr Fraser came with her the first time, then one of her father's mates was her next escort, and the last time Tom and Jim went to the Bluff for her, and also went back with her.”
A fleeting shadow crossed the dark handsome face, but beyond saying that the blacks were now not so bold as they were two years ago, he apparently did not take much interest in Miss Fraser's visits to Ocho Rios. But already his ever suspicious mind was at work about her and Gerrard.
After lunch, as there was more branding to be done, Gerrard went back to the stockyard. Aulain wished to come and help.
“Indeed you shall not, Aulain. I'll tell you what you ought to do. You were saying that you felt inclined for a sea bathe when you camped last night and heard the surf beating on the beach. Now, you and Jim go and have a jolly good swim in the surf. Jim will show you a place safe from sharks.”
“I can't resist that,” said Aulain eagerly. It was just the very thing he wished—to have a talk with Jim. “But I know the place you mean, Gerrard. My troopers and I have often bathed there when I was in charge of the N.P. Camp at Red Beach.”
Jim ran off to catch and saddle a couple of horses, for although the bathing place was only three miles distant, no Australian would walk so far (except to catch a horse) when he could ride.
“Take your fishing-line, Jim,” said Mrs Westonley, when he returned leading the horses, “and catch some bream for supper. No, Mary, certainly not—you cannot go. No, not even to help Jim to catch and clean the fish. This is a terrible girl, Mr Aulain,” and with a smile she drew Mary to her, “I know exactly what she wants to do—ride into the surf and get wet through.”
“Aunt, you are a wonder. However did you guess?” and Mary, now almost as tall as Jim, hugged Mrs Westonley's slender waist; “that's exactly what I did mean to do. But I also meant to catch fish as well.”
“Then you can 'catch' me some guinea-fowl eggs instead, to make egg and bread-crumb to fry the fish. Mr Aulain, do you know that Tom brought some guinea-fowl from Port Denison, and now we have hundreds of them? They are horrid things, though. Instead of laying in the fowl-house in an ordinary Christian fowl-like way, they go miles away, and of course the carpet snakes and iguanas, and kookaburras,{*} get most of the eggs and chicks—except those which Jim and Mary find.”
* Laughing jackasses.