By Blow and Kiss. Boyd Cable
over and see Ess mounted on the Sunday.
They rode quietly towards the Ridge, and Steve pushed his horse alongside her. “I must compliment you on your seat on a horse, Miss Lincoln,” he said.
He spoke rather loudly, and Ess felt a pang of anger. It sounded as if he was showing the others what an easy way he had with girls; but she was not one of these, and…
“I suppose I ought to say ‘Thank you,’” she answered evenly, “but I won’t because I don’t like compliments.” She was puzzled and rather resentful of the smile that twinkled on his face, and was quickly suppressed, and she turned her shoulder squarely to him and commenced speaking to Scottie.
“Looks like the drinks are on you, Aleck,” said Steve, grinning as he dropped back beside Gault. “But I must say I liked the cool way she turned me down.”
As she rode on, Ess had some compunctions about the way she had “turned him down,” and wondered once or twice if she had not misjudged him. If she had, she had been extremely rude as well as unfair. He gave her no opportunity of making amends on the way home, so, after she and Scottie had ridden to their own door and dismounted, she walked across with him to where the men were unsaddling and feeding their horses.
She walked straight up to Steve, and spoke clear enough for the other men to hear.
“I’m afraid I was horribly rude to you,” she said; “and I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
Steve was thoroughly astonished, and for a moment taken aback. Then he barely bowed his head to her. “That is very kind of you, Miss Lincoln. Kinder than I deserve, perhaps, but – thank you.”
“I feel better,” said Ess, lightly; “I hate being mean. Now, good night all.”
She walked back to the house with Scottie, feeling curiously elated and happy. “Did I do right?” she asked him.
“Hech, lassie,” said Scottie, smiling under his moustache. “How’s a mere man tae follow the workin’s o’ a woman’s mind? If ye think ye did right, then ye did. I wunnered some at your checkin’ him as ye did, for naething I could see.”
It was more than an hour after, when they had finished supper, and Ess had washed up and sat herself at the table where Scottie sat reading, that she went back to the subject. They had talked of other things between, but she picked up the conversation as if it had never been broken – which is significant if you come to think it out.
“I put him in rather an awkward position,” she said. “But he got over it most gracefully.”
Scottie looked at her a moment in silence. “Aye,” he said, vaguely but satisfactorily.
“Do you know,” Ess said, “I believe he is not as black as he has been painted.” She looked at him a little defiantly. “It’s horrid, being stand-offish and nasty to anyone, especially meeting him every day.” Scottie knew where she was now, but wisely attempted no argument.
“Aye,” he said again.
“So I’m just going to treat him the same as all the others,” she said. “And if he presumes on it, I think I’ll know how to stop him. He’s a gentleman, I believe, and won’t persist in ways a girl plainly shows she doesn’t like.”
“An’ what if they’re ways she does like?” asked Scottie, gently.
“Well?” she asked, the note of defiance a little more marked.
“‘Well,’ I hope,” said Scottie, gravely. “He’s a good enough lad at hairt, I believe, but he’s unstable as water wi’ wimmin folk – unstable as water.”
Ess laughed. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to fall in love with him. But I believe we’re going to be very good friends.”
Before she went to her bed that night she stood long looking out of her window.
“I’m not going to love him,” she said again to herself.
And that again was significant.
Over in front of the men’s hut Aleck Gault and Steve sat on the rail, after the others had gone to bed.
“You ought to pay the drinks after all, Steve,” said Gault. “She snubbed you all right, but she made a most handsome apology for it.”
“She did so,” said Steve, emphatically. “It took some grit to do that in front of the crowd, Aleck. I’m getting to like that girl. She’s something out of the ordinary.”
Aleck Gault smoked on in silence. “Any objections?” said Steve.
“You’re such an ass about girls, Stevie,” said Gault, cheerfully. “I suppose you’re going to fall in love as usual.”
“I never fell in love in my life – but once,” said Steve. “And that was lesson enough not to again. If I thought I was going to do that now, I’d clear out to-morrow.”
“You may not fall in love with them,” said Gault, “but they do with you – some of them, anyway. And somehow I wouldn’t like this girl to feel that way for any man that didn’t love her.”
“We’re gushing about love like a pair of sentimental old tabbies, or a page out of a woman’s novelette,” said Steve, contemptuously. “Love be blowed. The girls like a lark as well as I do, and that’s all.”
“If that’s how you feel about this one, best let her alone,” said Aleck Gault, slowly.
“Oh, shucks,” said Steve. “Anyway, I’ll try what it’s like to be friendly without making love.”
“Seems to me I’ve heard of something about Platonic friendship before, and the way it ends,” said Aleck, grinning at him.
“It won’t be any Platonic friendship basis then. Tell you what, I’ll start off by warning her that I’m an unmitigated blackguard, and that I have an infallible weakness for falling in love with every pretty girl I meet. And if I show any signs of the disease with her, will she please kindly bump me over the head with a half brick and chase me off the scenery. How’ll that do?”
“You might try it,” said Aleck Gault, reflectively. “Will you let me come along and rub in the warning of your character?”
“Surely,” assented Steve; “and we’ll refer her to Scottie, and each individual of the crowd for confirmation.”
“I think it’s likely you’ll be late at that,” said Aleck, drily. “She’ll have had it already.”
And in view of what he had just said, it was unreasonable of Steve Knight to feel annoyed because it might be so.
CHAPTER V
“Steve,” said Scottie next morning, before they started work in the mulga paddocks, “we’re tae camp here for a few days. Ride back t’ the Ridge, will ye, an’ bring Ess back in the buggy. Bring the six b’ eight tent, and tell Blazes to bring the cart wi’ blankets an’ tucker for the men.”
So Steve dropped his axe and flung the saddle back on his horse, and in ten minutes was cantering hard across the flats under the scorching sun. “Wonder why Scottie picked me to come,” he thought. “Won’t the others be mad?” and he chuckled in high spirits.
As he came over the rise of the road to the plateau he saw Ess Lincoln and Blazes at the cook-house door. Steve came down the slope with a rush, lifted his horse and leaped the gate with a ringing whoop, and pulled his horse to its haunches within a couple of yards of the astonished pair.
“Orders, Miss Lincoln,” he said gaily. “Pack up and move. Sling together any things you need for a week’s camp-out, and get ready to come back with me in the buggy. And, Blazes, I’ll help you meantime to load the cart – blankets, tucker, and the rest – and you’re to drive it down.”
“Camp where – what for?” asked Ess in astonishment.
“In the mulga paddocks,” said Steve. “Boss was over this morning, and gave the order. I’ve been expecting