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But even that was denied her at first. Behind her in the mirror she saw the bags and parcels she had placed in readiness to be picked up after she had left here. About to put them all back again, she saw that something was missing, was that note she had written and left on top, that: 'Dear Mr Roper, I’m sorry …' She was sure she had placed it on the bags.

Piece by piece she re-stacked the luggage and made the hut look as it had looked prior to her decision to leave. When he came down later with her mount for today he might wonder if the bags were still there, might even look closer.

But still she found no note. Perhaps it had blown away; perhaps it had blown under the table, blown beneath the bed—

The bed. Suddenly so weary she could not think of anything else any longer, Georgina tottered across to the bed and flopped down.

The next thing she knew was a knock on the door and a
sound that could only be a horse’s hoof.

‘Rise and shine!’ Roper called out. ‘I’m waiting, young Brown.’

Georgina dragged herself up, pulled a comb through her hair and called: ‘Coming, sir! ’

The
horse was a reasonable size and did not look too forbidding. If she had had a fair night’s sleep she would have looked forward to climbing up and cantering into the herby scrub beside the mighty Roper, Georgina thought, but drained as she was

But once beside her mount she put every bit of effort into her haul up and actually made it to her satisfaction. She trusted it was to Roper’s satisfaction, too, but she did not look across at him to find out.

‘His name is Ribbons,’ Roper was advising her, ‘probably because they knew he’d never get any. But he’s a tolerant chap and shouldn’t take off.’

‘Take off?’ she asked numbly.

‘Into the bush if something upsets him. There’s a lot to upset a mount out here. That, for instance.’ Larry Roper pointed. ‘That’ was a gecko lizard, keeping absolutely quiet, pretending he wasn’t there, something that lizards did very well. ‘If the gecko was on the track and decided to move just as Ribbons put his foot down, it could be a different story,’ he went on. ‘I’m just telling you, Brown, so you won’t let Ribbons’ easy gait send you off into a doze, which you look as if you might do at any minute. What’s wrong? Didn’t you sleep last night?’

‘Yes,’ lied Georgina, ‘but I guess I just need more sleep out here. I think’ ... inspired ... ‘I’ll deprive myself of social evenings in the future and go to bed instead.’

‘You’ll get over that,’ he dismissed. ‘It’s just the change of air.’

They rode indian-file through the thicker scrub then side by side over a patch of gibber. When they came to some coarse grass, Roper let his own mount, Gibraltar, have his head, so Georgina supposed she had better do the same with Ribbons.

They rode on like that for perhaps an hour, then Roper drew Georgina’s attention to a blur in the distance. He said it would be the mob.

They took another thirty minutes reaching it, this time over dry-as-old-hay terrain, despite the recent big Wet. Some terrain, Roper related, was like that, it never got enough rain. The two horses, whose enthusiasm had diminished somewhat at having sandy waste instead of grass under their hooves, had slackened pace, and now had to be scolded on.

They paused for a drink for the horses, a small wurlie this time, set in bluebush.

‘I suppose you know all the drinking holes,’ Georgina said with careful offhandedness, and he nodded.

‘Every one. It’s essential. I could tell if even one ripple had been unrippled.’

Or a frog dislodged? But Georgina did not say it. She moistened her hot face with her handkerchief dipped in the wurlie and wrung out, then mounted Ribbons once more.

They rode off again to the distant blur that was now taking the shape of a dust cloud which was formed, Roper said, by a thousand hooves.

‘Is there no grass there?’ she inquired.

‘You put that many feet on grass and see what you finish up with,’ he shrugged.

The cattlemen waved to them as they came up, but they also waved them away from the herd. The beasts were touchy this morning, they explained. There had been some brumby camels around, and sometimes that was all that was needed with these prima donnas. The stockmen suggested that they all ate further away on the hill.

The ‘hill’, like the ‘valley’ where her hut was, proved equally level to Georgina, but the meal the men put on proved a great success. That the tea was brewed from the same water which boiled the scrubbed jacket potatoes didn't lessen its aroma, and the great slabs of brisket on Mrs Willmott’s home-made bread was wonderful.

‘What’s wrong with the beasts?’ Roper was stirring his tea with a twig.

‘Just touchy. You know how they are, boss, sometimes you could drive a fire engine through them and they wouldn’t stir, but today they’re on edge.’

‘There must be a reason, I mean apart from the camels. They generally take the camels fairly well Ah, I think that could be the reason now.’ Roper pointed to the distance and there in the sky Georgina could see the silhouette of a small plane.

‘Overhead noise is something they don’t like,’ Roper told Georgina. ‘Camels I have no doubt they can explain to themselves in a kind of animal way, also harriers and hawks, but never monstrous birds like that. So long as the wretch doesn’t come any closer.’

‘I shouldn’t think he would, boss,’ one of the drovers advised, ‘that sort isn’t interested in beef on the hoof, only in what lies in the ground under the hoof.’

‘Yes,’ Roper agreed drily. He looked at Georgina. ‘A spy plane,’ he explained.

‘I thought so,’ she nodded.

Stomachs well filled, the cattlemen spread themselves out, leaving two on watch to guard the mob, and slept. Larry Roper did the same as a matter of course, and feeling she would be conspicuous by not following suit, Georgina stretched out, too.

She would have dearly have loved to have let herself sleep, or just drift off, but that was a luxury she must wait for until she reached the hut again and closed the door behind her.

It was difficult to stay awake, though; the sun was pouring down on them. No wonder, Georgina thought drowsily, that lizards fall asleep on sunbaked rocks. Also the herby smell of the desert was almost soporific, the occasional ring of a hoof and the occasional cry of a harrier almost mesmeric. But no, she must not sleep. Sleep out here would be dangerous. She could say something, and it could be a wrong thing ... for a George.

She opened her eyes and flicked her glance round. Everyone else slept soundly. If she got up it might break this longing for sleep; she could move around, walk somewhere. If Roper saw her she could always say she was looking for signs.

But it was too risky to get up here, the men were too close to her.
He
was too close. She looked at him covertly. Yes, he was asleep. Then she would roll quietly away, roll again, keep rolling until she was clear of the group and it was safe to scramble to her feet.

Georgina did the first roll, the second. It was a success, she congratulated herself, rolling faster now.

Then she stopped. Someone was rolling with her. Instead of her leaving the mighty Roper behind her, he was accompanying her. The absurdity of it could have made her laugh if she had not wanted to object instead. The fool, did he think she was playing some childish game? And yet, she had to admit, it could look like a game.

His last roll had brought him within a foot of her. Their eyes looked at each other, a bare twelve inches apart.

‘I—I had a cramp and wanted to get up, so I rolled here not to disturb the others,’ she explained.

‘Very thoughtful of you. Where is the cramp? I’ll massage it.’

‘No. No! It’s gone now. The exercise of rolling must have fixed it.’

‘As well as a strong determination,’ he nodded. ‘Well, if it’s not there any more you may as well lie back again. There won’t be anything doing until siesta’s over.’

‘I did think I’d scout around with the magnet.’

‘This is cattle country, not mineral,’ he objected.

‘But there could be leads ’

‘Then they’ll be ignored. This is the cattle side, Brown.’ Roper’s lip had come out, something, Georgina had noticed, that happened when he wanted to emphasise a point.

‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

‘Also,’ went on the mighty Roper, ‘I wouldn’t advise any exploring, not with this mob of cattle. You heard Watson say that the beasts have been touchy.’

‘They seem quiet now,’ she protested.

‘Don’t let that silence deceive you. I’ve seen a rush start from the click of a cosmetic purse, the unscrewing of a lipstick. Though I hardly think ... drily ... ‘you’ll be doing that.’

‘Of course not.’

They talked in low voices so as not to disturb the sleepers, though Roper said it would take a pack of howling dingoes to do that after lunch.

‘And there aren’t any of them here,’ he shrugged. ‘Dingoes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because of the fence?’ Georgina knew of the six-thousand-mile enclosure across one-third of the continent.

‘Yes, our dog pen,’ he nodded. ‘Yet not entirely because of that, but because the dingo isn’t so partial to horns and hoof as he is to sheep.’

Georgina gave a little shiver. As a man she shouldn’t have, but it came instinctively. ‘Poor sheep,’ she said, ‘to be the loser.’

‘Well, such is life,’ shrugged Roper, ‘it’s full of deceit, for man as well as sheep. Don’t you agree, Brown?’

‘What, sir?’

‘For instance, you wouldn’t think those sleeping angels there,’ he nodded to the stockmen, ‘could change to raw-voiced, blaspheming devils when they’re called upon to keep a mob in one body, would you? Yes’ ... the slightest of pauses ... ‘things can be deceptive.’

Georgina said nothing.

One by one the men awakened. They conferred with Larry Roper, and Georgina gathered that they intended moving the mob.

It’s a bit sparse here,’ Larry explained, coming back to Georgina, ‘so they’ll find another valley.’

‘Are you overlanding them somewhere?'

‘Heavens, no. I’ve been road-training the beasts for years now. No, we’ll just edge them on to greener pastures until they’re ready to truck. Moving a mob is a sight worth seeing, George. Get on your mount and follow up.’

Georgina went across to Ribbons and pulled herself on. Roper had untethered Gibraltar, and as he climbed up he instructed Georgina to keep well to the side in case one of the beasts got cranky. ‘But,’ he said, ‘I think it s going to be sweet.’

It was a wonderful sight. And it remained ‘sweet.’ The mob, kept in order by dogs and men, moved quietly forward, a great mass of huge bodies and churning hooves. The dust after the press went by was wall-thick, and it took a long time to subside.

The cloud was still enveloping everything when the sound of a plane occurred again. It was in the distance, as before, but this time it seemed to be coming nearer and louder. Beside her, Georgina heard Roper begin to swear.

She tried to blink through the dust that still hung round, but she could see nothing. ‘Is it the spy?’ she asked.

‘Who else? A pastoralist wouldn’t do such a damn fool thing. I'll say this for most of these fellows, too, they don’t come too near a mob. Why this fool is coming now is beyond me.’

‘You have to expect that,’ Georgina heard herself say, 'if you run two things on one property.’

His jaw tightened. ‘When I want your advice I’ll ask for it, Brown. Now get back.’

‘Why?’ Georgina was enjoying her proximity to the mob; those great rippling bodies moving past made her feel part of the earth itself.

‘
Just do as you’re told,' he said, 'or you'll feel my crop across your back. No, I’m not joking. Brown, you've never been in a stampede. I have. Now get back.

Georgina was hot with anger. This man was just too much, she thought. Deliberately she edged Ribbons nearer, and at the same time the craft above flew low, and the mob that had been proceeding ‘sweetly' began a first beat of restless hooves.

It only took one beast to break up the quiet. It wheeled and went in the wrong direction, and at once the panic was on. Every animal seemed to tom in a different way. then they began trampling ground away from their allotted ground, ground that had not been planned.

'Get back. Brown!' Roper shouted, and at once he joined the other stockmen in fairly flying up and down the ranks. The dogs did their bit and more. The boss drover was cracking h
is
whip over the rippling bodies of the cattle.

It was like a picture on a huge screen, Georgina thought, fascinated, not meaning to disobey Roper but so caught up with it all that she could not pull Ribbons away.

Then Ribbons backed off his own accord, backed quite violently. One of the churning beasts had caught the horse’s leg, probably only superficially, but it changed Ribbons from an affable mount to a wild horse.

Not sure of what was happening, only sure that she must stick on, Georgina felt Ribbons rise on his back legs, then gallop away from the rush..

’ She had absolutely no control over him, and that was why she was surprised that she could hear Larry Roper s voice shouting out to her to hold on. It seemed impossible that she could follow every word he said when she couldn't even bring herself to try to check the mount.

‘Hold on, Brown. He'll tire soon. Hold on, I say!'

'I can’t!' she cried.

‘Then break clear and I'll take you off.'

‘Oh, no!' But Georgina said that to herself, and now she did try to check Ribbons. Roper must not
—must not
—take her off.

The sudden restraint, where before his rider hadn’t imposed any, took the horse by a different sort of surprise from the shock of the stampede. He halted abruptly, so abruptly that Georgina promptly flew over his head. Luckily she hit grass, coarse grass admittedly, but not gibber or rock.

She heard Ribbons whickering—he was, as Roper said, a tolerant fellow—but she heard, too, Larry’s thunderous approach. In one moment, she thought dazedly, he’s going to pick me up, and—and She took a deep steadying breath. She shut her eyes for a moment against a weaving, wreathing world, and braced herself.