"Don't you ever forget how to talk?" she said, in an awestruck
voice.
But he answered laconically to his beard that there was the cat.
Baby had found it already under the kerosene tin that did duty
for a bucket, and it had scratched her in three places: brown,
like its master, it was evil-eyed, fiercely whiskered, thin
as a rail; still, there was the affection of years between the two.
Mr. Gillet told him of the squatter's wish that he should go with the
other men and help with the tree. He pulled a brown hat over his brow
and moved away towards the bullock-dray, which had crept up the
winding road by now, to the hill-top.
"Water in tub, nearer than creek," he muttered to his pipe before he
went, and they found his tub-tank and gladly filled the billy ready
for lunch.
Mrs. Hassal's roast fowls and duck tasted well; even though they
frizzled on the plates as if the sun were trying to finish their
cooking. And the apple tarts and apricot turnovers vanished speedily;
and of the fruit salad that came forth from two screw-top
bottles, not a teaspoonful remained to tell a tale.
Mr. Gillet had brought materials for a damper, by special request,
and after lunch prepared to make it, so they might have it for
afternoon tea.
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