“Well, ’tis no credit to me,” remarked Tim, at length accepting nourishment at the hands of the laughing twins. “ ’Tis only that I noticed she’d a scar on her hand, the day she was at my place: and, by good luck, I remembered to look for it!”
He ate a vast meal, punctuated by many cups of tea. Though he had been up all night, and working hard for twenty-four hours, he disclaimed any idea of being tired. He kept a wary eye on the smouldering fires, until the twins sent Billy and Rex to patrol them: then he allowed his long limbs to relax, lit his pipe, and “yarned” in the manner dear to the bushman. All the time he covertly watched Jean and Jo. They strolled across to the fires presently, and he watched them go, with a little smile.
“They’re wonderful alike,” he said. “But I’ve got ’em placed now. Their hair don’t grow quite the same way, an’ my Miss Jo has a tiny mole near her eye.” He ran over half a dozen other differences: some that Mrs. Weston herself could not remember noticing. “I’ll not mix them up again,” he finished. And he never did.
“I wish the Boss could have seen his way to buyin’ old man Murphy’s sheep,” he said, as he was preparing for his long ride home. “They’re dirt cheap, and no mistake: if only rain comes they’ll be easy money for the man who buys them.”
“Yes—but if rain does not come, Mr. Conlan?”
“Oh, rain’s sure to come some day,” said Tim, with the easy optimism of his Irish blood. “And there’s two months’ feed, of a sort, where they are. It’d be worth the risk, if a man only had the money. Murphy’s pretty near ready to give them away, for cash!”
“But cash is what no one has.”
“More’s the pity, for it’s a real bargain. I’d like Mr. Weston to have been the one to make a pile out of ’em. But of course no one’s buyin’ sheep now, nor cattle either, barrin’ the chaps down Gippsland way. He’d truck ’em there, only they’d never stand the trip.” He put his bridle over his horse’s head. “Well, I’ll say good-bye, Mrs. Weston.”
She put her hand into his.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping us.”