Moncrieff’s paddock stretched away to the east, blackened and bare. Smoke rose lazily from the charred timber on the ground, but only one burning tree still stood erect. There was a steady sound of chopping near its base, where could be seen a man, whose axe rose and fell with machine-like regularity. As Jo pulled up the horses, a warning crack came from the tree, and he stepped quickly backwards, looking up. Slowly the tree swayed to one side, seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then toppled lazily over, coming to earth with a crash. It broke into three pieces, showers of sparks and burning fragments rising from it. The greys leaped beneath Jo’s restraining hand; and then, deciding that they had made a mistake, settled to calmness again.
“That’s Mr. Conlan,” Jo said. “Isn’t he a brick, working here like this—and on Sunday, too! And there’s Mr. Moncrieff. We must send them home—if they’ll go. Come on, Jean, and we’ll get the horses out.”
They unharnessed the greys and tied them in a patch of shade, while Billy and Rex hunted for sticks to boil the billy. Moncrieff came riding towards them as they returned to the buggy.
“Good-day, Mrs. Weston. Nice and hot, as usual, isn’t it?”
“It was hotter for you, yesterday, Mr. Moncrieff, I believe,” Mrs. Weston answered, laughing. “You have had a great burn.”
“Yes, thoroughly satisfactory, since it didn’t finish by getting the Emu Plains grass,” said Moncrieff, a burly man with a keen, rugged face. “I certainly was afraid that it was going to. It has done me hundreds of pounds worth of good, in clearing up my paddock.”
“We’ve come to relieve you, Mr. Moncrieff,” Jean said. “Father sent us out. We’re to stay until he comes, so you mustn’t wait, after you’ve had a cup of tea.”
“I won’t wait for that, then, if you don’t mind, Miss Jean,” Moncrieff said. “I’ll not be sorry to get a sleep, for I’ve been on the go for two nights now. My wife will have tea for me when I get home.” He yawned openly, looking at them with tired blue eyes, inflamed from the smoke. “Great kid you’ve got there,” he said, nodding towards Billy, busily gathering sticks a little way off. “I never saw anything quicker than he was last night. Well, I’ll be going.” He lifted his hat—they saw a long red burn across his hand as he did so—and, wheeling his pony, rode away.