She looked up and smiled faintly, as if amused at his ignorance.
“Kitty tumble down,” she said, relapsing into the blackfellows’ English.
“Oh! come, I say,” said Turner, “this’ll never do.” And he went outside in search of Stanesby, whom he found strapping their swags on to the packhorse.
“Look here, I say, old man, that poor little beggar’s frightened out of her wits of the myalls down by the creek there.”
Stanesby shrugged his shoulders.
“All bunkum! I know her ways. She wants to get me to stop. She seems to guess there’s something in the wind. The myalls! pooh! They ‘re as tame as possible. They steal any odds and ends that are left about—that’s about their form.”
“But the poor child is frightened.”
“Frightened! Get out. There wasn’t much fright about her when she took the knife to you last night! She knows very well how to take care of herself, I can tell you.”
“But those myalls. On Jinfalla we—Well, it really seems to me risky to leave her all alone. Even if there isn’t any danger—the very fact of being alone—.”
“Pooh! Considering she tramped from the head-station here all the eighty miles on foot, just because of some breeze with the cook there, she must be mightily afraid of being alone. However, if you don’t like her being left, it ‘s open to you to stop and look after her. I ‘m going to start in about two minutes.”