tell him he needn’t come up. He won’t get Art.”
Randal kicked some sticks together in the open chimney, and set them ablaze. Then he sat on the chopping-block, his chin in the heel of his hands, and his strong muscles loosed. He had given months of loneliness to this hut in the last sheep-season, and his cast blankets were in the bunk yet. Lou asked no questions. It was not needful. He yawned. Then he grinned again.
“Oh, you fool,” he said softly, and glanced at the bunk.
Art Scannell lay across the grey blankets with his smooth pretty face thrown back. The small black head and short upper lip were too like a girl’s—too like the girl for whom Randal would have paid away his soul, and who was far above his reach, as men count things in this world. The flames bobbed and fluttered in the chimney; outside the horses dozed under warmth of the bag-covers, and a mopoke called, once and again.
Art Scannell shot up in his bunk, and his eyes were suddenly awful.
“Hear that chap crying,” he said. “See him? There . . . through the hole in the thatch!”
Lou leapt for him with his eternal light laugh.
“Now we’re in for it, Randal,” he said, and brought the boy down by the leg.
