For Warribah was in the back-blocks, and Grear held all the river frontage for twenty miles.
“But they hate each other, and Wilson ain’t the man to crawl,” said Hill. “He’s a good sort. I’ll go myself.”
He went back to the hut and, taking his saddle and bridle, walked to the horse paddock, which seemed as barren as a stockyard. He caught his horse, that was standing at the gate and looking wistfully towards the stable as if he knew that good feed was there.
“Come,” said Hill, and he rode south through the pine scrub towards Grear’s. He came to the station as the sun went down, and when he asked for the boss Grear came out.
“Oh you!” he said roughly. “And what d’ye want?”
He was a long, thin man with a cold eye and thin lips, and as he looked at him Hill felt that it was a foolish errand he had come on. The man was worse than he had imagined. It seemed that Wilson was right. To ask Grear for anything was to invite insult. And though Hill had come twenty miles to ask he turned away.
“I haven’t seen you for nigh on a year,” said he, “and now I’ve seen you, why, I shan’t weep if I never see you again.”
He got upon his horse solemnly and turned away, leaving Grear with an open mouth.
“I was a fool to come,” said Hill, as he ploughed his way among the sandhills. “He used to reckon that all the back-blocks was his, and Wilson took ’em up. Grear don’t forgive.”
The night had come upon the land, but there was no remission of the hot north wind. The heated earth radiated heat still, while in the clear obscure of the heavens the stars glittered like sharp points of steel. They stabbed Hill’s very heart as he rode and looked into the rainless depths of heaven. For the sky was no overarching dome at that season. It was an awful emptiness without form; it was space itself, unmitigated and terrible, and heaven’s lamps were near and far and farther still, while black, starless spaces showed like unfathomable patches in a silent sea.