And why shouldn't he? He may be, and
generally is, sadly in need of a woman friend, "some one to share his
joys and sorrows with", but because he knows few women is no reason why
he should stand afar off and adore the unknowable. "Friendly like" is
what appeals to us all; and the bush-folk are only men, not
monstrosities - rough, untutored men for the most part. The difficult
part to understand is how any woman can choose to stand aloof and freeze,
with warm-hearted men all around her willing to take her into their
lives.
As the men exchanged opinions, "Freezers" appeared solitary
creatures - isolated monuments of awe-inspiring goodness and purity, and I
felt thankful that circumstances had made me only the Little Missus - a
woman, down with the bushmen at the foot of all pedestals, needing all
the love and fellowship she could get, and with no more goodness than she
could do with - just enough to make her worthy of the friendship of "rough
chaps like us."
"Oh well," said the traveller, when he was ready to start, after finding
room in his swag for a couple of books, "I'm not sorry I struck this
camp;" but whether because of the cabbage, or the woman, or the books, he
did not say. Let us hope it was because of the woman, and the books, and
the cabbage, with the cabbage placed last.
Then with a pull at his hat, and a "good-bye, ma'am, good luck," the man
from Beyanst rode out of the gundy camp, and out of our lives, to become
one of its pleasant memories.
The man from Beyanst was our only visitor for the first week, in that
camp, and then after that we had some one every day.
Dan went into the homestead for stores, and set the ball rolling by
returning at sundown in triumph with a great find: a lady traveller, the
wife of one of the Inland Telegraph masters. Her husband and little son
were with her, but - well, they were only men. It was five months since I
had seen a white woman, and all I saw at the time was a woman riding
towards our camp. I wonder what she saw as I came to meet her through the
leafy bough gundies. It was nearly two years since she had seen a woman.
It was a merry camp that night - merry and beautiful and picturesque. The
night was very cold and brilliantly starry, as nights usually are in the
Never-Never during the Dry; the camp fires were all around us: dozens of
them, grouped in and out among the gundies, and among the
fires - chatting, gossiping groups of happy-hearted human beings.
Around one central fire sat the lubras, with an outer circle of smaller
fires behind them:
