Weak ones who come into his life; although he'll strive to the
utmost to keep the Unknown Woman out of his environments particularly
when those environments are a hundred miles from anywhere."
The opposition looked incredulous. "Hunger and death!" it said.
"Fiddlesticks!" It would just serve them right if she went; and the men
folk pointed out that this was, now, hardly flattering to the missus.
The Maluka passed the interruption by without comment. "The Unknown Woman
is brimful of possibilities to a bushman," he went on; "for although she
MAY be all womanly strength and tenderness, she may also be anything,
from a weak timid fool to a self-righteous shrew, bristling with virtue
and indignation. Still," he added earnestly, as the opposition began to
murmur, "when a woman does come into our lives, whatever type she may be,
she lacks nothing in the way of chivalry, and it rests with herself
whether she remains an outsider or becomes just One of Us. Just One of
Us," he repeated, unconsciously pleading hard for the bushman and his
greatest need - "not a goddess on a pedestal, but just a comrade to share
our joys and sorrows with."
The opposition wavered. "If it wasn't for those telegrams," it said. But
Darwin, seeing the telegrams in a new light, took up the cudgels for the
bushmen.
"Poor beggars," it said, "you can't blame them. When you come to think of
it, the Unknown Woman is brimful of possibilities." Even then, at the
Katherine, the possibilities of the Unknown Woman were being tersely
summed up by the Wag.
"You'll sometimes get ten different sorts rolled into one," he said
finally, after a long dissertation. "But, generally speaking, there's
just three sorts of 'em. There's Snorters - the goers, you know - the sort
that go rampaging round, looking for insults, and naturally finding them;
and then there's fools; and they're mostly screeching when they're not
smirking - the uncertain-coy-and-hard-to-please variety, you know," he
chuckled, "and then," he added seriously, "there's the right sort, the
sort you tell things to. They're A1 all through the piece."
The Sanguine Scot was confident, though, that they were all alike, and
none of 'em were wanted; but one of the Company suggested "If she was
little, she'd do. The little 'uns are all right," he said.
But public opinion deciding that "the sort that go messing round where
they know they're not wanted are always big and muscular and snorters,"
the Sanguine Scot was encouraged in his determination to "block her
somehow."
"I'll block her yet; see if I don't," he said confidently. "After all
these years on their own, the boys don't want a woman messing round the
place." And when he set out for the railway along the north track, to
face the "escorting trick," he repeated his assurances. "I'll block her,
chaps, never fear," he said; and glowering at a "quiet" horse that had
been sent by the lady at the Telegraph, added savagely, "and I'll begin
by losing that brute first turn out."
CHAPTER II
From sun-up to sun-down on Tuesday, the train glided quietly forward on
its way towards the Never-Never; and from sun-up to sun-down the Maluka
and I experienced the kindly consideration that it always shows to
travellers:
