Page:Coo-ee - tales of Australian life by Australian ladies.djvu/39

Rh for yourself. If you ride to Jones' hut, you can find out; and if it is worth while staying, he can put you up.'

I was savage as I unhitched my horse and rode away, and if I could have done as I wished, would have ridden back there and then; but work had to be done, and personal annoyance would hardly have been taken as an excuse if I returned without the cattle, and I could not trust the black boy with me to drive them by himself. The stockman had had what he termed 'a touch of the sun,'—assisted, I suspected, by a good share of bad rum,—but was better, and would be able, he thought, to turn out the first thing in the morning. Neither were other matters quite so bad as I expected. Jones was a married man, and his wife looked after an adjoining hut that was set apart for chance travellers, so my quarters were not so uncomfortable; and though the being sent off in that way rather rankled, still I was not sure I had any right to complain. So, after making an inward vow never to go again in another's place, I tried to make the best of it, and pass the afternoon as well as I could. Fortunately, after I had had something to eat, and had made my final arrangements with the stockman, I found a readable book, and the day being now pretty well advanced, I did not feel that I had so much to grumble about.

I was so absorbed in the book, Adam Bede, that I never heard steps approaching till a voice said, 'Mrs. Jones, I have brought you'—the speaker, who