Around them was the plain, hot and bare of any living creature, nothing in sight save a low ridge bounding the eastern horizon, a ridge which on closer inspection took the form of bluffs, in most places almost inaccessible. Overhead was the deep blue sky, so blue it was almost purple in its intensity, with not a cloud to break the monotony. Sky and desert, that was all, and these two Englishmen meeting, and the shadows cast by themselves and their horses, were the only spots of shade for miles.
“Sweet place!” said Guy Turner, looking round. “Warmish too. Wonder what it is in the shade?”
“In the shade, man. There ain’t any shade, unless you count the shadows of our poor old mokes, and mine’s so poor, I ‘ll bet the sun can find his way through his ribs. I ‘ve been in the sun since daybreak, and I reckon it is somewhere about boiling point.”
“I suppose it must be over 1600. What the dickens did you come out for?”
“Well, seeing it’s been like this for the last three months, and is likely to go on for three more, as far as I can see; it ain’t much good stopping in for the weather; besides there’s this valuable estate to be looked after. But to-day I rode over for the mails.”
“Lord, no! The track to Roebourne passes along about twenty miles off over there, and I get the boss to leave my mail in a hollow tree as he passes.”
“Trusting, certainly. There ‘s some good about this God-forsaken country.”
Dick Stanesby, or, to give him his full name, Richard Hugh De Courcy Stanesby, shrugged his shoulders scornfully.
“Evidently, Dick, that mail wasn’t satisfactory. Has she clean forgot you, Dick, the little white mouse of a cousin, with the pretty blue eyes? She was mighty sweet on you, and------”
But there was a frown on Dick’s usually good-tempered face. He was in no mind to take his old chum’s pleasantry kindly, and the other saw it, and drew his own conclusions therefrom.
“Chucked him over, poor beggar, I suppose. Hang it all! Women are all alike; once a man’s down, he’s forgotten,” but he did not speak his thoughts aloud. He looked away across the sweltering plain, and said casually,
Stanesby pointed east in a vague sort of manner, that might indicate South Australia, or far distant New South Wales.