Christmas had come and gone, and it was New Year’s eve. Summer was ruling in earnest; day after day saw the sun rise like a golden disc, to be molten brass during the long, breathless day, and finally sink into a lurid sky, a ball of liquid fire. The grass dried rapidly; paddocks that had been green when Norah and Jean came from Melbourne were now waving expanses of yellow. Rumours of bush fires all over the country districts filled the newspapers.
Despite the heat, Billabong was doing its best for its visitors. Wally’s adventure was almost forgotten by the victim himself, since he had suffered no further effects from the snake bite than a rather sore hand—due, Jim said, to poor carving. No one seemed to mind the temperature much. When the thermometer was trying to eclipse all previous records, the house was always a cool refuge; or there was the lagoon, where the boat rocked sleepily in the shade of the willows; or the tree-fringed banks of the creek, where no intrusive sun rays ever penetrated. Besides, there was so much to do that there really seemed little time to think of the weather; long days out in the paddocks with the cattle, mustering, or drafting, or cutting out; boundary riding, to make sure that fences were in good order and gates secure; fishing expeditions, rides to neighbouring stations, and long, delicious bathes in the lagoon, which in themselves made the heat seem worth while. Jim had established a jumping ground during his year at home—a paddock near the homestead, where a couple of log fences and some brush hurdles made an excellent training ground for the horses. Brownie used to stand on the balcony, torn betwixt pride and anxiety, watching the four riders sailing over the jumps—with sometimes a fifth, when Mr. Linton could persuaded to add Monarch, his black thoroughbred, to the starters. The boys entertained visions of a general hurdle race, for which the entries should include Lee Wing, the Chinese gardener, on an ancient piebald mare entitled Bung Eye, and Hogg, his sworn foe, on a lean mule that was popularly supposed to be capable of kicking the eye out of a mosquito. They even planned to enter Mrs. Brown, and declared their intention of training her on Blossom, a Clydesdale mare of great antiquity. In this ambition it is perhaps unnecessary to state that they had not the support of Mrs. Brown.
To-day the quartette had ridden into Cunjee, somewhat against their inclination. As a rule the township made small appeal to them; they greatly preferred the freedom of the paddocks and the wide galloping-places of the plains. On the station, where play included work and responsibility, there was never any dullness; the interests of each day claimed them, giving even the girls a definite share in the daily business. It was the life to which Norah had always been accustomed, and which she loved with every fibre of her energetic being. That Jim and Wally should care for it was a matter of course; to them also it was a part of life. It had been added joy to find that Jean took to it with a zest little, if anything, inferior to her own. Nothing was wanting, in Norah’s eyes, to complete the perfection of holidays and Billabong.
The necessity of despatching a telegram had caused the expedition to Cunjee; somewhat deplored by the boys, since they were reluctantly compelled to don coats, to which they strenuously objected in the hot weather, and to find hats of a more respectable appearance than the battered felt head gear they habitually wore. They rode away after an early lunch; four cheery figures, alike in white linen coats and Panama hats, the brims turned down to keep the sun glare from their eyes; turning at the bend in the track to wave farewell to Mr. Linton, who stood at the gate to watch them go.
Cunjee was found gasping with heat, and only mildly consoled by the fact that no such temperatures had been recorded in the memory of man.
“Now, I always think that’s quite a help,” Jean said. “Once it’s 100° in the shade you feel almost as bad as you’re going to feel—and you might just as well have the satisfaction of knowing you had every excuse for being hot, because it was 114°. That makes it so interesting that you forget to be sorry for yourself!”
“I like to hear you, New Zealand!” quoth Wally, with fine scorn. “Didn’t know you ever worked up much of a temperature in those Antarctic islands of yours!”
“Well, we aren’t exactly singed into chips, like the Queenslanders!” said Jean, mildly, amidst mirth on the part of Norah and Jim—while Wally, who hailed from the vicinity of the Gulf of Carpentaria, looked modestly unconscious. “But we can be just as warm as we want to be.”
“Well, Cunjee is warmer than I appreciate,” Jim said. “Let’s leave the horses at the hotel to get a feed, and we’ll go and beg afternoon tea from Mrs. Anderson.”
Mrs. Anderson greeted the invasion enthusiastically.