Page:Where the Dead Men Lie.djvu/109

 His talk of wild cattle and rushes—a curious slang on his lips— Of narrow escapes and of brushes with niggers on perilous trips; A supple-thewed, desert-bred rover, with naught to commend him but this: That he was her idol, her lover, who’d fettered her heart with a kiss.

They were wed—and he took her to Warren, where she in her love was content; But town-life to him was too foreign, so back to the droving he went: A man away down on the border of Vic. bought some cattle from Cobb, And gave Harry Parker the order to go to the Gulf for the mob: And he went, for he held her love cheaper than his wish to re-live the old life— Or his reason might yet have been deeper—I called it deserting his wife!

Then one morning his horses were mustered; the start on the journey was made;— A clatter, an oath through the dust heard, was the last of the long cavalcade. As we stood by the stockyard assembled—poor child! how she strove to be brave! But yet I could see how she trembled at the careless farewell that he gave.