Finally they discovered one suit that had not been taken, piecemeal, to work in; but the moths had also discovered it. Sponge and press and darn as Hermie might, it still looked disreputable; the shirts were ragged, there was no hat that was not hopelessly spoiled with the sun and dust and rain.
It forced itself upon Cameron that there was but one thing to do—he must borrow a few pounds from some one.
And there was but one man he knew who would lend it to him—Mortimer Stevenson. Hermie had never told her secret. He groomed Tramby up a little, and put on a linen coat and hat, and set out in the direction of Coolooli. He hoped he might not meet the father; he was quite conscious of the fact that the business-like, successful old man looked upon him as a shiftless beggar. They knew each other slightly; Stevenson had ridden in two or three times when passing the selection, and stayed for an hour or two talking stock and crops and the war. Once or twice Cameron had been for dinner to Coolooli while shearing was on, and there were chances to learn successful methods. But he shrank with all his soul from encountering the old man this morning.
Two or three aboriginal women were coming back from a journey to the house, cloths full of stores and broken food slung over their shoulder. Stevenson forty years ago had had to break up a big camp of them on the land he had just taken up, and drive them farther west. Ever since he had not felt justified in refusing food to any of their colour.
Cameron stopped the women, to ask if they had seen Mortimer riding away that morning.
’I say, Mary,’ he said, ’you been see that one Mr. Mortimer?’
’Ba’ al mine see ’im that one young pfeller Stevenson walk about,’ said the most ancient of the women. ’Old pfeller Stevenson ’im up there. You gib it tik-a-pen, you gib it plenty pfeller ’bacca.’
Cameron threw her a bit of precious tobacco, which she proceeded at once to cut up and cram into her unsavoury-looking pipe. Then he rode on; Mortimer might by chance have gone out somewhere on the run before the women had reached the station. Half a mile nearer to the house a sundowner had been put on to mending a fence. At present he was smoking and looking at it occasionally.