A stark naked gin, with a
fillet of greasy skin bound round her head, and a baby slung in a net on
her back, came whining to Turner with outstretched hands. She had mixed
with the stockkeepers before, and knew a few words of English.

"Give it terbacker along a black Mary. Budgery{1} fellow you," but he
pushed her away with the butt end of his whip.

"My place's not above a mile away now," said Stanesby, as they left the
precincts of the camp behind them.

"I wouldn't have those beggars so close, if I were you. Some fine
morning you'll find yourself--"

"Pooh! They're quite tame and harmless. I 've got a boy from them about
the place, and he's very good as boys go. Besides, I 'm off as soon as
possible."

1 Means "good."

"Well, I bet you the man who takes your place thinks differently."

"Very likely."

"Got a decent hutkeeper?"

"What? Oh yes. Pretty fair."

Clearly Stanesby was not in the mood for conversation, and Turner gave
it up as a bad job. It was about two o'clock now, the very hottest hour
of the day, and all nature seemed to feel it. Not a sound broke the
stillness, not the cry of bird or beast, nothing save the sound of their
horses' hoofs on the hard ground was to be heard.

"By Jove!" said Turner, "this is getting unbearable. I vote we get down
and shelter for a spell under the lee of the bank."

For all answer, Stanesby raised his whip and pointed ahead.

"There 's the hut," he said. "Better get on."

It was hardly distinguishable from the surrounding plain, the little hut
built of rough logs, and roofed with sheets of bark stripped from
the trees which grew in the river-bed. Down in the creek there was
a waterhole, a waterhole surrounded by tall reeds and other aquatic
vegetation which gave it a look of permanence, of freshness and
greenness in this burnt-up land. But that was down in the creek, round
the hut was the plain, barren here as elsewhere; no effort had been made
to cultivate it or improve it, and the desert came up to the very doors.
The only sign of human life was the refuse from the small household--an
empty tin or two, fragments of broken bottles, and scraps of rag and
paper, only that and the hut itself, and a small yard for horses and
cattle, that was all--not a tree, not a green thing. The bed of the
creek was their garden, but it was not visible from the house; its
inmates could only see the desolate plain, nothing but that for miles
and miles, far as the eye cou