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‘Any more rules?' asked Georgina eagerly. She was fascinated by the conversation.

‘No droving before sunrise, no droving after sunset.' He was raising his brows at her interest, but he seemed pleased.

‘I see.' Georgina
could
almost see, and she half-shut her eyes in pleasure. ‘But why’ ... and she opened her eyes again ... ‘am I wanted?'

‘Because I damn well know,' he grinned, ‘that you wouldn’t stay at home.' So he had seen her enchantment.

About to deny this, all at once Georgina was smiling back.

Cut it out, she told herself at once, and grin instead. Be offhand about it. Don’t forget you’re a man.

‘So,’ finished Roper, ‘that’s on our plates first.’

What was on the droving plate the next few days was beef and shepherd’s pie.

‘No brisket?’ Georgina asked once.

‘That’s for geos who haven’t time to lift their heads, and who are not within call of sympathetic pastoralists anxious to hand across something to keep body and soul together.’ (This shepherd’s pie had come, with a large pumpkin, from a beef farmer suffering the same worrying cattle slump as Roper’s.) ‘Droving, as you must have appreciated by now, is an entirely different story.’

Joanne, who had turned the shepherd’s pie over and over with distaste and refused the pumpkin, averted her face. She hated every minute of the overlanding, and was often hard put to conceal her resentment from Roper. She certainly made no bones about it when the two girls were together.

‘I can’t last ten days, I can’t! ’ she exclaimed.

‘I think that it’s important that you do.’

‘Important for whom?’ There was a sudden sly light in Joanne’s eyes, something that Georgina was familiar
with. It had always meant that Joanne was up to something.

‘For you, I should say,’ Georgina answered frankly, ‘having pegged your claim on Mr Roper.’

‘Speak your own language, George, you aren’t a geologist, and never will be, yet I really think now you believe you are one.’

‘Well, you know what I meant.’

‘Oh, yes, I know, but—’ again the crafty little light, ‘but I’m tired,’ Joanne finished pettishly.

‘Tired in yourself or tired of the land?’

‘Of the land. Horrible bare place that it is. Such boring colour!’

Georgina flushed. ‘That’s unfair, Joanne. There’s colour to spare. The sunrises ’

‘Which I’m forced to be up to see.’

‘Well, the cattle have to be moved. Then the sunsets '

‘In civilised places,’ broke in Joanne, ‘people are drinking sundowners then. There is soft music, smooth waiters ’

‘Oh, Joanne!’ Georgina paused. ‘Also when the light catches the rocks –'

‘Now you’re talking sense.'

‘The light on the rocks?’

‘The rocks themselves,’ corrected Joanne, ‘all with dollar signs on them, I hope.’

Georgina gave a little sigh but made no comment. Not that Joanne would have heard her, for she was thinking aloud.

‘Yet you had something there when you asked me whether I was tired in myself or tired of the land. Come to think of it I
am
tired in myself.’ Her eyes positively glinted with craft now. ‘All this riding!’

‘You’re a good rider, Joanne.’ That was true. Joanne had been indulged much more in riding, just as she had been indulged much more in everything. Not because either of their parents had wanted it that way, but because Joanne had seen to it that she got it. ‘You look wonderful in your gear,’ Georgina added, and Joanne nodded, impatient at being told something she already knew.

‘Really, it’s beginning to tell on me,’ she said half to herself, half to Georgina. ‘I’ve never been strong like you.’

‘Joanne, you’ve had remarkably good health. Why, every. one always said ’

‘Everyone is not me,
I
am me, so I should know.' Without another word Joanne turned on her heel, evidently seeking out Larry by the way she looked around her as' she pulled her horse. Big Tim, behind her. Why can’t she lead him, not tug him? wondered Georgina, but that, she knew, was like Joanne.

It was lucky for the mount that Larry was not far away. Georgina saw the mighty Roper get off Gibraltar, then the two of them, Joanne and Roper, strolled to a thicket of mulga safely clear of the beasts and away from the stockmen—and from Georgina—then began to talk.

What was the conversation? Georgina thought, and she tried to ignore a stab of envy. For the talk out here had been magic to Georgina. There had been very little by day, they had been too busy then, but at night it had been all the wonderful stories of the west; cattle rustlers, poddy dodgers, stories learned from the aborigines of the Dreamtime. Bush songs, bush poetry. Clancy.

Biting her lip, Georgina turned away.

She was helping Sam with a stubborn beast some time later when Roper cut in.

‘I want a word with you, George.’

‘Yes, boss.’ Out here Georgina had been calling him what all the stockmen called the head man on a drove— Boss. She turned her mount and cantered to where he had cantered, and now waited.

‘Has Joanne been talking to you?’ he asked at once.

‘Well ’ Georgina did not know what to say.

‘Poor girl, I see she has. Don’t be embarrassed, George. If she told me, surely as men we can discuss it. After all, there’s nothing more agonising than saddle sores. She’s been a brick to have lasted this long.’

‘Saddle sores?’ she echoed.

‘Yes. You see, she has confided in me. You could see she hated doing it, but when you’re in pain ’

‘Yes, boss.’

‘I expect she said a whole lot more to you, you being her stepbrother.’ Roper looked inquiring.

‘Well ’

‘Well, she had to tell someone, poor child.’ He was looking across at her; looking very hard, Georgina could feel the boring of his eyes again, but she could not trust herself to look back. That girl, she was thinking, that little liar Joanne! Joanne, she felt certain, had nothing of the sort. She recalled that little flick in Joanne’s sweet, innocent eyes. Well, it seemed the ruse had paid off.

‘We can’t expect her to go any further,’ Roper said.

‘If you say so.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ Now he had narrowed the eyes. ‘Do you doubt for a minute ’

‘I only said if you say so because you’re the boss,’ cut in Georgina promptly.

‘Well, as the boss I say just that,' he said firmly.

‘What will you do with her then until we’re ready to return? Make a permanent camp and leave her?’

‘No, I don’t like that idea. Once I might have, but now the world isn’t quite such an innocent place as it was. There are undercurrents, subtleties, deceits.’ It may have been her imagination, but Georgina thought he flicked her a glance at ‘deceits’.

‘Then how about some homestead?' she asked.

‘Good lord, not for Joanne! ’

‘No,’ agreed Georgina, ‘she wouldn’t even eat the shepherd’s pie. I really mean ’

‘I know exactly what you mean, Brown, and don’t be so smug about it, because you’re evidently a “natural” yourself. It’s only to be expected of a man.’

‘Yes, boss,’ she said meekly.

‘No, we’ll send the little girl home.’

‘Home?’ she echoed. .

‘To Roper’s.’ He spoke impatiently. ‘Those sores probably need attention. I’ve first aid naturally, but a woman likes to—well ’ He broke off, and Georgina set her lips and did not help him.

Presently he said crisply:

‘You will take her.’

‘What?’ she said, startled.

‘You heard me, Brown.'

‘Yes, I did, but ’

‘Yes, Brown?’ he asked inexorably.

‘I don’t want to go, sir.’ There were a dozen things that Georgina could have babbled ... pleaded. The desert at sun-up, with so much gold you felt like King Midas, the desert at sundown, and indigo, violet, burnt sienna, ochre. She hadn’t heard the last of the poddy-dodger stories, either, the Dreamtime tales, the bush songs, the bush poetry. Clancy.

She looked at him piteously, forgetting she was a male. Then she remembered, and looked away.

‘It has to be you, Brown. All the others are needed.’ He said it a little more gently, if this man could be gentle. ‘You’ve done well, but naturally since it isn’t your job, not as well as they do. So you can be spared.’

‘Why can’t she’ ... a look from Roper set Georgina correcting herself ... ‘why can’t Joanne go alone?’

‘She’s a woman.’ He paused. ‘Also she isn’t so experienced as you are up here. You’re a natural, as I said before. I’ll have no qualms about sending you two back.’

‘All that way ’

‘As the track goes I’ll agree its “all that way”, but you will straighten out the curves of the track, a thing you can do when you’re on a horse with no mob around you. Don’t look alarmed, you can’t possibly get lost.’

‘It’s still a long way,’ she said miserably.

‘Will you be surprised when I tell you that with “straightening out the track” you’ll do it in a day?’

‘Which day?’ asked Georgina forlornly.

‘Tomorrow. That girl can’t wait any longer. Spare her as much as you can, Brown, but still don’t dawdle. If you push off at first light you should make Roper’s by five.’ He was looking at her very closely now. ‘Understood?’

‘Understood,’ Georgina said. ‘Will you tell her or will I tell her?’

‘I will tell Joanne,’ he said coldly. ‘When I was a youngster “her” or “she” was the cat’s mother.’

‘Still is.’ Georgina said it to herself, not crediting he would hear. But he did, and his hand shot out and he whirled her and Ribbons round to him. The mount, who had been grazing, whinnied with surprise.

‘Watch your tongue, Brown,’ Roper said.

‘Yes, sir.' Georgina stood very still until he took away his hand, then she escaped.

Later in the day a jubilant Joanne cantered across to her. If there were any saddle sores, thought Georgina, she was being very brave about them.

‘It worked! I would have preferred a car to come out and fetch me, but at least I’ll be away from this place.’

‘I’m to conduct you,’ Georgina said.

‘Yes, and see you do it efficiently or the big boss will have something to say.’ Joanne smiled and she looked like the kitten who had got the cream.
‘Handle with care.
You can see it in his eyes.’

‘I can’t,’ retorted Georgina.

‘Of course you can’t, the care is for me, not you. You’d better get me back safely.’

‘For whom?’ The words seemed to say themselves, and Georgina looked uneasily at Joanne.

Joanne looked back at her with narrowed eyes.

‘You’re getting a bit too smart, George.’ Joanne was supreme mistress of the situation. ‘Just get me back without any comment. Oh, dear, it’s going to be a bore getting up at first light.’

‘You’ve done it all this week.’

‘Second light,’ corrected Joanne blandly. ‘I always had a cuppa brought to me. Did you? But then you’re George.’ She laughed as Georgina cantered away.

They were sent to their sleeping bags early that night, no disappointment for Joanne, for the campfire talk bored her, but Georgina fretted with disappointment.

She lay awake watching the fire flicker through the bush that separated the camp from the sleeping bags, listening to the men’s voices but not being able to hear the words. She decided she had better sleep if she wanted to do a good job tomorrow, and began counting stars in the hope of slipping off. The campfire had been stamped out, and the men had gone to their sleeping bags ... with the exception of the herd watchers ... before she did lose consciousness.

Some time later she woke up, and she wondered whether the snores to left and right had done it, though they hadn’t disturbed her on other nights.

Then faintly yet clearly she heard it; someone singing the cattle. Singing the cattle was always done when one of the beasts was restless, but it hadn’t been needed yet on this drove. But someone was singing now. The song was
Always.
I’ll be loving you always.

...
I'm all for always. Are you?

It was Larry Roper singing. Singing to the cattle. And to Joanne.

Georgina was not conscious of crying, but she must have been, for when Roper called at first light: ‘Rise and shine! ’ her face felt stiff, and touching it she recognised the roughness of salt. She sluiced herself quickly, drank down the scalding tea she was handed so fast that Roper’s eyebrows shot up, then on Ribbons, with a yawning Joanne on Big Tim, she left the overlanders and started for home.

Joanne grumbled all the way and all the day, but apart from her complaining voice it wasn’t at all bad. Larry Roper had been right about “straightening the track”. Years of droving the cattle over it had given it unnecessary curves and bends, but by detouring into the scrub, though always keeping the road in view, you cut off miles.

By four o’clock in the afternoon they were approaching the Roper station.

‘I can’t get to that bath quick enough,’ said Joanne.

‘Want me to help you with any dressings?’ asked Georgina.

Joanne gave her a pitying look. ‘Don’t be an ass,’ she said. ‘No, there’s nothing a hot wallow won’t fix. I’m going to lie in and soak and soak. I’m going to use up every drop of hot water.—No. No, I’m not.’ Suddenly, so suddenly that Georgina could think of nothing to say, Joanne turned round and smiled radiantly at her.

‘No, I’m not,’ she repeated. Then she announced:
‘You
are.’

‘I’m what?’ Georgina was taken aback.

‘You’ve been wonderful, and I do appreciate it. You’re going to have first go of the bath, and don’t dare budge from it for an hour.’

‘But, Joanne...'

‘You’ve done twice the riding I have.’ That was true, Georgina had checked each short cut first. ‘You’ve really deserved what you’re getting, Georgina.’
Georgina
not George, ‘and that is first go. No, no, I insist.’

Mollified—well, she had to feel mollified—Georgina stammered her objections, then, when pressed again, her thanks.

It was wonderful, she appreciated an hour later, to lie and soak. She shut her eyes in the relaxation of it all. How kind Joanne had been, how unexpectedly kind. It made it all the better when you hadn’t anticipated anything like that.