Boyd Cable - By Blow and Kiss

“Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest, et cetera,” she quoted. “How can that be experience? He hasn’t been to them.”

“Not the physical ones, if there are such, but mental ones possibly. Have you never touched a Gehenna or a Throne?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“You will some day,” he said; “every woman does, and unfortunately she usually drags a man or men along with her.”

“But if she drags him there, he travels the faster for it. Therefore the writer is wrong.”

“Cleverly turned,” he admitted. “But I fancy the Throne the writer speaks of is Success. It appears so from the context.”

“You said the writer probably spoke from experience. You admit that he has that, and has travelled fast and far to Success?”

“Decidedly so,” he agreed.

“Then I have you,” she cried, clapping her hands in triumph. “You know that he is married?”

“Yes,” said Steve, grinning at her. “But he travelled his fastest and farthest before he married. You must admit that.”

“I don’t. I don’t know enough of his work or current opinions of it.”

“You know that he made his name and his way to Success before he married?”

“I know you agree with him because it’s an excuse for your own possible wickedness. And I hope you’ll always be forced to travel alone and prove the truth or untruth of your theory.”

Steve dropped the bantering tone he had used throughout, and leaned forward to look hard at her.

“That’s hitting below the belt,” he said, and rose abruptly. “And you’ve missed your best argument. To travel fast and far is not everything; it may be a very little thing compared to a corner in a dark humpy; and the ‘warm hearthstone’ be worth far more than all the ‘high hopes.’”

Then he said good night smoothly, but abruptly, and went. And Ess that night was not a little thoughtful – and sorry.

She was afraid that he might stay away this last night, and because all the time in camp had been so happy for her, she had no wish for him to take away unhappy thoughts of it.

So she scribbled her note, “Come over to-night. Sorry I was rude last night, but remember our compact. E.L.,” and folded it and wrote his name boldly on the back, and gave it to her uncle to read and to carry to Steve. “I was a little unkind last night, uncle,” she said, “and I don’t want to be that.”

When he came over this last night, she smiled at him and asked “Have I apologised enough for my rudeness?” and “The compact is more to me than the rudeness,” he told her.

“Very well,” she said gaily. “Now I’ve an endless string of questions to ask. Uncle here never understands that I don’t know as much about sheep and the rest of it as he does, and he gives the most meagre information. Now you tell me all sorts of wonderful things – not too wonderful, I hope. I always had my doubts about the stories of the foxes biting the tongues out of the live lambs, and not making another mark on them. Is that strictly true, uncle?”

“Too true, unfortunately,” said Scottie. “Ye’ll see plenty o’ them if ye see a lambin’ season here.”

“How perfectly horrible,” she said. “But I wanted to ask about this drive. How do you do it? Do you men walk behind or ride?”

“We ride, thank Heaven,” said Steve, fervently. “I tell you my legs are aching to get a grip on a saddle again. This sheep work doesn’t suit me, and I’m sick of the sight and sound and stench of the brutes. Give me a good horse on the hillsides, and the cattle charging to – er – billy-oh, and there’s something in it.”

“Never mind the cattle now,” she said; “tell me about the sheep. Can I help drive them?”

“I’ll lend you my stockwhip,” said Steve. “All you have to do is ride behind the mob and crack the whip. And it’s so easy to crack a stockwhip.”

“Now I know you’re fibbing,” she said accusingly. “Because uncle warned me, one day I had his, that I might cut my head off with it. Didn’t you, uncle?”

“Maybe no cut it off a’thegither,” said Scottie, “but ye can gie yersel’ a nasty bit slash wi’t.”

“Then I’ll cut you a long pole, and you can prod them in the ribs, and punch them up with it,” said Steve.

“Why prod them and crack whips at them?” asked Ess. “Is there any need to hurry them?”

“Need enough,” said Steve. “See here…” He dropped on one knee and picked up a stick, and scratched lines in the sand: “Here’s the camp, here’s the line of the hills, and here’s the valley leading to the Ridge. The hills in the back of the Ridge have the most feed left, and have some fairly level patches, so we’re pushing the sheep for there. You know how far it is to the valley leading to the Ridge, and you know there’s no water between here and there. And the sheep are weak enough now, and they’re getting weaker every day, and the longer they take to get there, the more will die on the road. So you see there is some need to hurry them. You’ll see some mighty unpleasant and apparently cruel work this next day or two, and I don’t know but what your uncle is making up his mind to send you to the station till it’s over.”

He glanced at Scottie as he spoke, but Ess spoke quickly.

“Uncle is going to do nothing of the sort,” she said. “I want to go right through this thing and see everything. I’m not going to be chased away when I don’t want to go.”

“We’ll let you do one day,” said Scottie, “and then you’ll mebbe go on ahead. I’ll likely be sending Blazes back to the Ridge then.”

“What time do we start, uncle?”

“We’ll be off at the first glint o’ licht,” said Scottie. “You can get some breakfast from the cook after we’re gone, an’ he’ll tak down the tent and pack it.”

“May I ride then? But who’ll drive the buggy back?”

“I can ride back after we make camp and bring it on,” said Steve; “we won’t move very far each day.”

“That’ll do,” said Scottie.

Steve had been sitting fastening a new cracker to his whip, and when he had finished Ess took it and tried to handle and crack it, he putting her grip right and showing how to hold and swing it, and the two of them laughing and playing like children with a toy. Steve praised her quickness in learning, and she was pleased out of all proportion at the praise. And when he left her that night she said: “I’m sorry we’re done with Mulga Camp. I’ve been so happy.”

It was still dark next morning when Ess heard the shouts and whip crackings, and bleating of the disturbed sheep, and when she emerged from her tent soon after light there was nothing to be seen of them but a heavy dun bank of dust on the horizon. She hurried over to the tent and cart where Blazes was busy packing up. “We’re completely left behind, Blazes,” she called. “Do let’s hurry and catch them. They’re ever so far away.”

“’Tain’t so fur, miss,” said Blazes; “you sit down an’ eat these chops, and we’ll soon be off after ’em, and catchin’ ’em.”

Ess ate her breakfast and helped Blazes to pack and take down her tent, then watched him take the horses down to water, and let him help her to the saddle. They trotted off over the broad track of the innumerable pointed dots of the sheep’s footprints, and as they came near to the dust Blazes swung well out on the flank of it. “We’ll dodge as much o’ that as we can,” he said; “it’s too like breathin’ solid sand to ride behind it.”

“But don’t the men have to ride behind it and in it?” asked Ess.

“They do, but we don’t,” said Blazes; “so we ain’t goin’ to.”