In a few minutes he had lit two fires, and when the coals were glowing on one, and the child was attending to the roasting of the pippies, he was boiling a billy of tea on the other, and laying out some cold salt beef and damper from his saddle-bags.
“Come, chick, you and I are going to have a great time to-night, as I told you, pippies and wild duck, and tea and damper, and after that is over you shall be tucked up in my blankets, and sleep until we hear the bell-birds calling to us in the morning.”
“Aunt Elizabeth——”
“That's all right, chick. Aunt Elizabeth will have nothing to say about it. I'll settle with her. Now, sit down on that blanket—I daresay you're hungry, eh?”
“Please, Uncle Tom, let me go home, Aunt Elizabeth——”
“We'll go home, chick, when the bell-birds and the crockets begin to sing. And Aunt Elizabeth won't say a word to you.” He smiled somewhat grimly to himself, “don't be afraid of that. You and I are camping out tonight—like two old mates. By-the-way, where do you sleep at Marumbah?”
“In the little room, just off the saddle-room.”
“And Jim?”
“Oh, Aunt Elizabeth doesn't like him to sleep in the house, so he sleeps in the stockman's spare room.”
“How old is he, chick?”