Mary Gaunt

“ At Yalla Yalla he and his mate had got enough flour and salt meat, they reckoned, to carry them on to the lonely station that lay half-way between Yalla Yalla and Port Vincent.
A man in the bush must have a mate, but Andrew, looking at his, wondered with a sudden imperious wonder how the Fates had ever thrown him, a man of birth and education, with this forlorn, foul-mouthed old wreck. ”

“ I'll help you. Isn't there anyone for whose sake you want to get back?"
"I tell you," said the other, falling back again on the ground and pillowing his head on his swag—and his voice still had the mocking tone—"there isn't anyone for whose sake I'd trouble to cross a road. What does the world care for me?" and he put his hand over his scarred face as if he could not bear the light of the sun upon it.
Andrew Latimer rose to his feet then. He drove away the waiting crows and he walked down to the salt lake. A salt lake does not necessarily imply water. ”

“ I may be."
"Then"—Latimer spoke very deliberately—"I'll stay here and see you through. It isn't a quarter of an hour since you lay down. Things can't be so bad."
Was it only a quarter of an hour? It seemed to him hours and days and weeks since he had first smelled the smell of the sweetbriar—that scent that here in this sweltering heat had filled his heart with a desire for better things—and behold! already death in an awful guise was staring him in the face! ”

“ I'm about played out."
"We can't camp till we find water," said Latimer, looking over the glittering salt lake that, when he closed his eyes, mocked him with its promise of green fields and dewy, flowering hedgerows. "To camp by this salt-pan would be just courting death."
"And I drank the last of the water. Latimer, you're a fool! Do you know where we are?"
"Well, we're on the Peninsula now. If we walk to the east, we must strike the sea; and coasting along the shore, we're bound to fetch Port Vincent." ”

“ There's the fresh air and the sunshine, and, after all, come to think of it, human nature's much the same in the travellers' hut out back here as it is in a London club or drawing-room."
Andrew straightened himself. "Still, a London drawing-room——" There was a wistfulness in his tones. "Think of the pretty English girls with their pink and white complexions, think of the dainty women——"
"Don't think of them. The best woman's a devil, taken any way. ”

“ He thought of that man now as he tramped on steadily by his mate's side. A man full of hope for the future, a man well dressed and accustomed to all the comforts, not to say the luxuries, of life, a man who intended to stay in Australia only till he had made his fortune—say three years at the very most—and then back to England and culture and comfort. ”

“ To stay by this man meant offering him his life—his young, fresh, strong life—just to soothe the last hours of a cynical, worn-out rake who would not even understand the sacrifice, and would not appreciate it if he did. ”

“ Yes, after all, in the bush a man could always get food for the asking. And then it struck him how low he had fallen, actually begging his bread and feeling no shame, and then he looked at his mate and asked a question he had never thought to ask in all the long months they had wandered together. ”

“ That's another of life's lessons, I suppose; and, like most of life's lessons, it comes when we are not in a position to profit by it. I'll never taste water again. How the sweetbriar makes me think of it! With all this sweetbriar about, there must be water."
"I'm going to take you to water." Latimer spoke in a whisper and spoke fiercely.
"Let me alone. Just five minutes. You go ahead and get help, and come back for me. We can't be very far from Port Vincent."
"Too far to leave you behind," said Latimer stolidly, though the crows seemed to be saying that his mate was right. ”

“ Well, a woman will sometimes, but you can't trust her in the end. Believe me, my dear chap, there's nothing disinterested in this world. You pull yourself together and get out of this. It only wants a little effort. ”