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Then it happened—all the colour in the world bursting out at the same wonderful moment, brilliant red, deep violet, flaunting pink and splendid gold. She wanted to jump up and embrace it all, to call out her delight, to cheer. Then she remembered in time that men don’t do things like that. Yet they appreciated beauty, for her stepfather had, and Larry Roper, Craig had said, ‘blindly’ loved this place. Perhaps that was what made Roper so difficult; his love was all used up, nothing left over. Well, she’d leave all that for another day, the day after she left here to be exact. Until then she would simply enjoy herself and not think about men and what made them tick, even though she was supposed to be one herself.

She had every intention of being fair to the employer who would never employ her, though, for she intended to do as much exploring as she could and to leave a full report when she went. At least he had got her here, so he deserved that much. Suddenly feeling the stress of travelling for three days, Georgina got up, made herself a sketchy meal from one of the tins and then went to bed.

The bed was comfortable but hard, the land she believed men preferred, so she must prefer it too. Did Craig sleep at the Brydens’ when he was up here? A nice man, Craig, she thought drowsily. A shame about the girl Elva whom the mighty Roper had removed so that Craig, or any man she supposed, couldn’t win where he had failed. Odd to think that a place like this could stage its little scandals, too. Craig, Elva, Roper. Larry Roper. Was Larry short for Lawrence? Or was it short for Lucy? She gave a long yawn. Lucy. Big Lucy. The Lucy River.

Georgina slept.

She awoke at dawn to primrose light buttering the uncurtained windowsill. There were no curtains anywhere, and Georgina felt tempted to make some from an old floral dress she hadn’t wanted to bring but had, because she had nowhere to leave it. I mustn’t, though, she thought sternly, that’s woman’s stuff. I must remember I’m George.

She bathed in the basin and cooked herself breakfast, then she began exploring outside.

She found the motorcycle and a quantity of petrol beside it, so she kicked the engine over and drove round the hut. The bike drove well and was easy to manage. She felt tempted to go further afield, but she decided to examine her nearer environs first.

She was surprised at the green grass and the variety of flowers, flowers she did not recognise—flood flowers, Craig had called them. They grew more thickly here than any she had seen on the track coming up, but then this terrain must have received more rain, for the property was on the Lucy. Knowing the distances of the west, Georgina would not have liked to guess how far she was from the river. Probably in the Dry, when the river dwindled, it could be as much as a hundred kilometres, but following the Wet, as it was now, as little as several kilometres. That was one of the pleasant discoveries she would, put away for later. But work came first, work for the boss who had made all this possible. Georgina pulled on a canvas hat and began scouting around, firstly on foot.

Even close to the hut the prospect was promising. There were several blackbutt trees, which was often a nickel indication, and some of the rock near them seemed likely host rock. Georgina believed there might even be the end of a serpentine belt. Where did the belt start?

She decided not to look closely now but to look instead at the station. She left the bike where it was and walked the half-mile up to the homestead, hoping that she would encounter no one on the way. She and Craig had seen no one yesterday.

But that, she soon realised, was an impossibility on a cattle station. Yesterday must have been an exception. Men were working in the paddocks, and they all waved to her. One called out: ‘How’s signs, Geo?’ to show he knew the language of her work.

Georgina hoped she made a suitably friendly, noncommittal, mannish reply.

She had not meant to call in at the homestead, but the housekeeper was on the verandah and saw her, so there was nothing for it but to go across when the woman went inside, to return holding aloft the time-honoured signal for tea.

They had it together in the big kitchen, and Georgina remembered to sit right according to Tom Sawyer. Knees apart for girls, Mark Twain had written, so that their dresses could catch a ball, but knees together for boys because a boy has no assisting skirt.

Mrs Willmott, meanwhile, was relating to Georgina how she was the only woman on the station.

‘What about the wives?’ Georgina asked. ‘Aren’t any of the stockmen married?’

‘None. They’re all like Mr Roper, bachelors. But don’t go getting any ideas that Air Roper orders it like that, he doesn’t. He simply prefers it himself, especially since....’

But Mrs Willmott did not finish that.

No, she proceeded proudly, ‘Mr Roper never dictates. Very tolerant, Mr Roper. He even has parties here at times for the younger ones. There are not many young fellows these days, they all drift to the city. We hold the do’s in the big barn. Then’—and Mrs Willmott smiled at Georgina ...

‘I’m not the only woman. You’ll enjoy yourself at the parties, George. There are plenty of pretty girls. My goodness, you do have a small appetite, not like my cattle boys.’

They use up more energy,’ Georgina suggested, ‘but I’d like to take back a piece of your brownie for supper.’

‘You’ll take the whole brownie, and some Hard Times.’

‘Hard Times?’ she queried.

‘We call the cookies Hard Times here. And you’ll take another loaf of bread,’ decreed Mrs Willmott.

‘I’ve barely begun the bread you left.’

‘But you must have fresh bread. Shall I send some down each day?’

‘No,’ said Georgina hurriedly, ‘I’ll come for it.’

'Yes, I think that’s better. You don’t want to bury yourself, do you, you want to come up here, otherwise you’ll be turning into a rock specimen yourself. But I guess the men will be after you.’

‘A-After me?' Georgina faltered.

‘To make up a hand of poker.’

‘Poker?’

‘Or to join a game of snooker. They have regular competitions.’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina faintly. ‘Well, I’d better get back now. You still haven’t heard any definite date for Mr Roper?’

'None yet. But he’ll fly in when he’s ready.’

‘Fly?’ she queried.

‘He always flies. One thing, out here there are plenty of landing strips,’ Mrs Willmott laughed.

Georgina left her presently, not knowing whether to feel pleased about the mighty Roper flying back or not. Flying in meant that Mr Roper could return much faster, yet on the other hand it also meant he could not surprise her as he might by car. You could not possibly conceal a plane, not in this great blue inverted bowl of a sky. Also the sound of a craft, even a small one, would cut through the quiet and alert her. I could be packed and out before the mighty Roper touched down, Georgina smiled. But meanwhile she wanted to get some work done.

She spent the afternoon examining, marking and noting any possible findings in her book. When she had finished she wrote it all up in detailed precision.

The rest of the week went like that. As well as ‘signs’ of nickel she found other minerals, as she had learned from her stepfather. Craig had been right when he had called this mighty Roper mineral-lucky, she decided.

They were enjoyable days. Georgina would explore in the morning, note her finds back at the hut, then put in several hours on the book. These things, and collecting her needs from the homestead, saw to it that time did not hang on her hands.

She had no tricky moments. Once one of the cattlemen came across to the fence to ask her to join them at cards, but when Georgina
explained
she had work to finish, he nodded sympathetically.

‘We might work harder while the work’s on,’ he grinned, ‘but you poor geos work harder when the work’s over. Well, boy, you know where to come for a beer and a yarn.’

‘Thanks,’ Georgina said.

At the end of the week she felt so relaxed she could not think of herself as the same strung-up girl who had faced Joanne in a cramped caravan and said miserably: ‘What plans could I have?'

Joanne! Georgina made a little face. She realised she must write down very soon to Joanne, tide her over, beg for a little time and make some satisfactory explanation, otherwise Joanne would want to know what was happening, and, being Joanne, set about finding out.

But nothing
was
happening, and it was wonderful that way. Yet Yet Georgina knew it could not last, and that actually she did not want it to last, not really. She was no introvert, she liked and she enjoyed company. It was just that Stepfather’s passing had left her empty, and that she needed a time like this to recover before she started to fill her life again. Another week the same as this week, and she might even take a risk and accept that invitation for a beer and a yam, she smiled to herself. No, she could never be a hermit.

She did not accept any invitation, of course, it would have been too hazardous; but she did take long drives into the scrub, mostly looking for the Lucy, which must be more miles away than she had thought, since she never succeeded in reaching it. But she did experience her beloved mirages, which sometimes took the form of dancing blue lakes with little boats set on them, once a shining river with banks and trees. Was it true, as Stepfather had said, that these mirages were actual scenes plucked up by the sky and repeated somewhere else? Was someone at this minute sailing in one of those little boats, someone sitting on a bank under one of those trees?

It was often hard for Georgina to believe that the dancing water she saw was not real but only ‘pretend’. Once she even halted the cycle to jump off and run towards the scene to find out. It was quite absurd of her, she knew, but

But she found water!

Yes, it was real, not fantasy, but it was not a branch of the Lucy, it was an old wurlie. Wurlies were aboriginal waterholes, but this one could not have been used for years, for it was overgrown, yet charmingly overgrown. In every way it was a very pretty spot. Caught up in rocks, almost cradled in them, its base and sides were stone instead of earth so that in place of green algae to take away the water’s sparkle it was as brightly clean as if it had been specially built there. The aftermath of the Wet had wreathed it round in vines and flowers, making a perfect setting. Dancing in the sun yet sufficiently shade-dappled to promise coolness, the wurlie was quite irresistible. Georgina looked at it for one moment only, then the next moment she was instinctively peeling off her clothes and splashing into the water. After bathing for a week in a basin she could think of nothing more heavenly.

She dived under, then surfaced. She let the sweet water encompass her, eyes, ears, head, all of her. She felt the short strands of her hair moving with the ripples she made, her body drinking in the gentle coolness.

But she was making no ripples when she heard the noise, and for that she could only thank a moment of delightful inertia, of dreaming quiet—or her good luck. She had just finished two laps of the wurlie, one on the surface, one under the water, and she was catching her breath. She had retreated to a cool crevice beneath an overhang of the rock when the sound broke, either a human or animal sound. It must be an animal, for she had heard no human type of approach, no car, no cycle, an thing like that. Yet she had heard a noise, so how—what

She peered out and almost laughed aloud. It was a horse. About to swim out and enjoy herself again, Georgina stopped. The horse was not a wild one, no brumby, it was formally saddled, which meant...
which meant
...

It was then that she saw the foot.

It was a very large foot, undoubtedly belonging to a very large person. The foot was encased in a big, expensive-looking tan riding boot.

She could only see the foot, nothing else, and as this was the case she knew that the owner of the foot could not see her.

She shrank back beneath the overhang, thanking the northern latitudes for the water that was warm enough for her to remain there without bodily discomfort. She stayed quite still, for the slightest movement would have caused a ripple, and a ripple on this calm pool would have been an instant betrayal.

Keep quiet. Barely breathe. Don’t move, she kept mentally briefing herself. Remember what you’re wearing, and that’s nothing at all.

The foot did not retreat. Was the fellow going to stand there for ever? Was he turned to stone? Thank goodness she had put the bike in a thicket, something she had always done as a matter of course, and thank goodness, too, her clothes were under a rock.

Still he stood. Then he must have picked up some pebbles, for he threw them into the water and the little waves came bounding at her, inundating her. Georgina, who out of caution had sunk even deeper with only her nose and eyes above the surface, could barely stop a splutter.

Go, go, go, she was willing the man, why don’t you go?

Then the frog arrived. A big green frog. It came from somewhere under the rock and it landed on Georgina’s nose, right on the tip of her nose. She looked at the frog and it looked back at her with unmoving black eyes. It probably thinks my nose is a leaf, or a lily pad, or something, Georgina realised, because I’m keeping so still. If I shudder it will leap and I shall scream, I couldn’t help but scream. But then I mustn’t shudder. I mustn’t do anything. Oh, please, up there, go.

At last the wearer of the boot did go.

Georgina saw the horse being deprived of its tasty cropping, saw the boot disappear as its owner evidently pulled himself into the saddle again. Then she heard the horse gallop off, the hooves soft on the new soft flood grass. No wonder she had not heard its approach, the animal would have trodden in silence on carpet-soft grass like this. But it didn’t matter now, for she was free at last, free to dislodge the frog, free to get out.

Bare, shivering from her fright if not from the water, Georgina was out of the wurlie and into her clothes in record time. That she was still wet, dripping wet, did not occur to her. She simply pulled on shirt and pants.