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  'It was not meant to be repeated.'

  'I'm sorry; I shouldn't have asked.'

  'That's all right.' He softened then, and referred to her previous statement that she had no money to buy more cattle. 'You can run to a few more, surely? You can't possibly make this place pay unless you buy some stock. What are you going to live on?'

  'We're going to grow our own produce,' intervened Cherry on seeing that Kate was suddenly at a loss as to how to find an answer to this question. 'Someone said, when writing about Australia, that to live here you must be your own Robinson Crusoe.'

  Paul laughed down at her.

  'That was in the old pioneering days,' he reminded her, whereupon she retorted with:

  'We're pioneers; we have to be.'

  'Robinson Crusoe and Girl-Friday, eh?' Serious his voice all at once in spite of the content of his words. 'You've got the guts of the pioneers,' he averred, but at the same time shook his head. 'You can't exist simply by growing your own produce. It might have served once, but these days you must have money.' His gaze settled on Kate. 'I can understand why you came—believing you owned High Creek Downs—'

  'Please don't remind me of it,' she begged. 'It's something I'm trying to forget because, you see, my friends gave up their teaching posts in order to come with me. I feel awful about it.'

  'We don't care,' Cherry told him, smiling. 'Kate will persist in feeling guilty, but in actual fact Lin and I persuaded her to come out here. Left to herself she would have sold the property without even seeing it. But she didn't even have your brother's offer. If she had she'd have realized at once that something was amiss, on account of the offer being disproportionate to the value of the property which Kate believed she had inherited.'

  'It was a damnable piece of luck, your being misled like that.' He paused a moment. 'As I was about to say: I can understand why you came, but what I can't understand is why you decided to remain—which you obviously have, seeing that you've not been in contact with Mark before now.'

  'Your brother expected me to approach him immediately I'd seen the property?' Kate's voice was crisp and colour tinged her cheeks.

  'As a matter of fact he did.' A little shake of Paul's head and then, 'You've got him puzzled—and that's an achievement, I don't mind telling you.' As neither Kate nor Cherry returned any comment to that Paul broached the subject of money again. 'What you want is a few small calves which you can fatten for beef. At least you'll have some cash then.'

  'We haven't any money for calves,' Kate told him with her usual candour. 'No, we shall grow our own produce, and we have milk and eggs. We're all agreed that we must give it a trial. Apart from anything else we shall gain experience.'

  'Even if you become paupers in the process?'

  'We're already paupers,' put in Cherry in her quiet unperturbed manner, 'so we can't be reduced to further penury. Our total assets are a few pounds and the car, which we mean to sell when we've used it once or twice to go into town to get the things we need for making the house habitable.'

  'And we're going to plunge on a few flowering shrubs, just to make it pretty outside,' Kate said with a smile. 'It looks so stark and—well—sort of forlorn without any roses round the door.'

  Paul gasped and then laughed heartily.

  'What odd sorts you pommies are! You'd buy flowers before food?'

  'Oh,' returned Kate cheerfully, 'we shall be able to afford a small stock of tinned meat and so on. And I expect we shall buy a whole sack of rice—so we can use up our milk.' She stopped suddenly, wondering why they should be confiding in this man, who was no more than a stranger to them. He would in all probability repeat it all to his insufferable brother who would not only derive the greatest satisfaction from the knowledge of their straits, but would also conclude that it was only a matter of time before Kate went to him begging him to purchase High Creek. The thought of her property diverting her for a space, she asked a question that had been puzzling her for some time, which was how the two adjoining properties came to have the same name.

  'The name came from the river over there, which is called High Creek,' Paul replied. 'Your place was here first—a long while before my great-grandfather acquired the land on the other side. He made an offer to the man who owned High Creek, who incidentally, was an ancestor of David Gleaves, and so sure was my great-grandfather that he would get your place that he actually labelled his own station High Creek Downs.'

  Cherry gave a little click of her tongue, while Kate allowed a sparkle to enter her eye. The presumption of the man!—to feel so sure that the man with the smaller property would sell out to him.

  'Your great-grandfather appears to have been an exceedingly assumptive man,' she couldn't help saying, even at the risk of offending Paul, whom she already liked quite a lot.

  'Undoubtedly,' was the spontaneous agreement. 'The Copelands are like that.' He laughed with his eyes and despite her indignation Kate had to produce a smile in response. 'Down through generations of Gleaves and Copelands there has been this obstinacy on the one hand and frustration on the other.'

  'Obstinacy, Mr. Copeland?' echoed Kate with gentle sarcasm.

  'Well, let's face it, High Creek has never paid.' He did appear faintly apologetic, but Kate knew that he spoke the truth. So small an area of land could not possibly pay in this inhospitable part of the country—the dry and torrid Outback. 'My father acquired the land on two more sides and then the position became worse because he wanted to join the two stations, naturally. Old David Gleaves was middle-aged even at that time—a bachelor living entirely alone. But would he sell? Not on your life. Next came Mark, who made him a ridiculously high offer, but the old man was too rooted to move. And as his only living relative was a little pommy who would definitely not want the property, Mark allowed it to rest, admitting himself that the man would never be happy anywhere else. He'd been born there, you see, and in his younger days he did manage to live off it, although he never made any money to speak of. Those were the Robinson Crusoe days you mentioned,' he told Cherry with an amused smile.

  She and Kate exchanged glances. Cherry had suggested that Mark Copeland had been kind to old David Gleaves, even being of the opinion that he had provided the man with food. Much as she disliked to admit to Mark's possessing a kindly streak Kate nevertheless was forced to do so. But she would never like him, she obstinately decided, not after he had allowed her to make such a fool of herself; he might have been kind to his neighbour, but he had certainly shown her no kindness. On the contrary, instead of extending sympathy, as his brother had done, he had merely treated her to a display of amused sarcasm not unmingled with impatience.

  Kate's next encounter did nothing to improve her opinion of him. They met when Kate was trying to repair the fence, after having brought the cow and calf over with the help of Paul earlier in the day.

  'You appear to be busy.' The words were spoken down to her, as Mark Copeland sat astride a high-bred roan gelding, on his own side of the fence. 'It won't last long like that.'

  A fuming silence followed as Kate continued with her task. She had found some wire in a shed behind the house; she could see it was rusty, but as there was nothing better available she was endeavouring to make as good a job of the repair as possible. At last she straightened up, her cheeks hot and her eyes glinting.

  'Did you want something, Mr. Copeland?' she inquired icily, raising him a glance as haughty as his own.

  'Only to make sure that your cattle don't stray on to my land again.' With an agile swing he dismounted and, keeping hold of the reins, he came close to the fence, standing for a moment looking down at it before saying, 'What good do you expect that to do, might I ask?' And to her chagrin he did little more than flick the wire with a finger and it broke in two. He laughed, raking her flushed face and quivering body. 'I advise you to try something more suitable than a bit of rusty wire.'

  Kate's eyes blazed.

  'How dare you break it?' she demanded. 'You can now repair it, Mr. Copeland!'r />
  Tense moments ensued. Mark Copeland's straight brows were arrogantly raised. What an inordinately disagreeable man he was, she thought, glaring at the broken wire and then tilting her head to glare at him.

  'The fence,' he said in a very soft tone, 'belongs to you. See that it's repaired at once—'

  'I've just said that you must repair it,' she broke in wrathfully. 'It was perfectly all right until you decided to meddle with it!'

  This was a ridiculous statement and the lazy amusement appearing in his eyes came as no surprise to Kate. It served to increase both her anger and her embarrassment and she felt she could have slapped him across his face, wiping off that smirk, as she spitefully liked to term it.

  His eyes were on her still; she felt stripped in spite of her very adequate covering of denims and a striped shirt, fastened right up to the neck. But it was not too clean and Kate was suddenly conscious of this fact, for the man in front of her had an immaculate appearance even though his attire was pure utility—tight trousers and checked shirt, a leather belt slanting from waist to hip, and a broad-brimmed hat which at present was tilted to the back of his head, revealing the hair at the front that had been bleached by the sun to a sort of tawny gold. His skin was bronzed, and sun wrinkles fanned out from the corners of his piercing blue eyes. An exceedingly handsome man, but formidable too… and far too imbued with the arrogance born of great wealth. His slow Australian drawl broke the silence at last as he told her once again to see that the fence was repaired. The next moment he was astride the gelding, whose long easy strides soon lengthened the distance between them, and Kate was left with her angry retort still lingering on her lips.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  From the sitting-room Kate watched the approaching figure of Paul Copeland. Her pulse quickened and she wondered if it were time she began examining her feelings for this tall Australian whose help they seemed always to be receiving. Over a month had passed since that first meeting with him, and a rather pleasant month it had been, with the homestead quickly taking shape as the girls worked on it—painting and cleaning, renovating and, where their meagre funds would allow, replacing items like cracked crockery and blackened pans.

  'What about that, then?' Lin's voice from outside the front door. She was speaking to herself, it seemed, since Paul had not yet reached the house and Cherry was cleaning out the hen coop. Kate was making curtains on the sewing machine which Paul had brought over a couple of weeks ago, telling the girls to keep it as along as they liked as there was no one to use it at his place. Cherry had inquired if he was married and he said no. And then Cherry had asked, in a much more tensed and curious tone:

  'Is—is your brother married?'

  'Mark married?' with a light laugh. 'He's far too concerned with his work and his possessions. Women have at times played small parts in his life, but there's never been any depth to these affairs.'

  Kate had glanced at Cherry, whose customary pallor was deliciously relieved by a tinge of rose… and a sudden unpleasant sensation swept through Kate. Surely Cherry was not attracted to that insufferable man!

  'Now if you had been roses,' Lin was saying to herself as she brushed the soil off her hands, 'you'd eventually meet over the door. But you're poinsettias and I'm not sure how high you'll grow.' A pause and Kate smiled to herself as she imagined Lin standing there, admiring her handiwork, as she invariably did on finishing some task. 'Yes… how about that, then?' in exceedingly satisfied tones. 'You look very pretty beside the nice new white paint of the front door. And now… I wonder if we can have a lawn—?'

  'No, you can't.' Paul's voice, and Kate stopped pinning up the hem for a moment and her eyes became dreamy. 'Not sufficient water—not if you're going to buy those calves from me.'

  'You scared the daylights out of me,' protested Lin. 'How is it that you Aussies can be so big and yet so soft-footed?'

  'The creek will dry up later,' continued Paul, ignoring Lin's question, 'and you'll be depending on your bore, so things like lawns are out.'

  'I'd like a lawn,' mused Lin with a deep sigh. 'Grass outside one's house is a typically English tradition.'

  'You're not in England now. You must forget all about your grass.'

  Kate listened to their discussion, her glance straying to the other window, and to the region of her land that had been allowed to return to the bush. Myrtle green tussocks of spinifex or porcupine grass, bushy and rampant, grew beneath the red river gums and casuarina trees; wattles abounded, their dainty blobs of yellow catching the sun so that brightness prevailed throughout the area which Paul had described as waste. Waste it might be, but it was natural—the natural vegetation of this particular part of the inland—and to Kate's mind there was nothing quite so attractive as that which nature itself so generously and lavishly provided. Of course, it was not at all economical to have land go back to the bush, and a man like Mark Copeland would undoubtedly be filled with derision that Kate had not already done something about clearing it. Perhaps the omission was misleading him into the assumption that High Creek would soon come on to the market. Well, he was in for a disappointment, as already the three girls were delighted with the place, having reached more than the half-way stage in turning the homestead into a comfortable dwelling. They still shared the big bedroom, but two others were in the process of being cleaned and decorated, and the furniture had been scrubbed and polished until it shone. That furniture which did not respond to this polishing was painted white to match the doors and windowsills. When these two rooms were ready the girls would move out of the large room, two of them sharing one of the smaller rooms temporarily until the third room was put in order.

  The voices outside came to Kate again. Paul was admiring the plants and Lin was saying she would like to buy some more, especially a bougainvillaea to grow up the support of the verandah—when the verandah was repaired, Lin ended with a deprecating laugh.

  'It wants renewing completely,' said Paul. 'I'll send over one of my joiners if you like.'

  'I like the idea well enough, but you know what Kate is. She'll let you go so far, but once she gets it into her head that you're dishing out charity that's it! About those calves, by the way. Kate maintains that your price isn't right. She says you're giving them away.'

  'They're not mine to give away; they belong to Mark.'

  'You know what I mean.'

  A small silence and then:

  'Kate's rather stubborn, isn't she?'

  'Afraid so—mainly, though, it's pride.' Lin glanced towards the door as it opened. 'We're talking about you,' she said as Kate came down on to the step. 'Paul's offered to have the verandah done for us.'

  Kate raised him a fluttering glance. On the last two occasions they had met she had noticed the deep admiration in his eyes… far deeper than on that first meeting. It was there now, and his easy smile appeared. It was very plain indeed that he was glad to see her.

  'If you let me pay for it,' said Kate, returning his smile. 'I would be most grateful to have the verandah put right,' she went on to add swiftly when she saw his smile fading. 'But I can't keep on taking things for nothing, Paul.'

  He frowned, and leant against the trunk of a spreading acacia, regarding Kate in silence for a moment.

  'Has it not occurred to you that I enjoy doing these things to help?' he said at length. 'I told you in the beginning that I admired your courage—' He spread a hand towards the girl who was approaching the house, carrying a basket of eggs. 'I mean all three of you,' he went on, casting a glance at Lin. 'You've got so much grit—tackling this place the way you have—that I feel compelled to help.'

  'We're very grateful to you,' Kate was quick to own, but did go on to repeat her assertion that she could not continue accepting his help for nothing. 'We do have a little money left,' she added, 'and there's still the car.'

  No more was said because Cherry came up at this point in the conversation and the matter of the verandah was left in abeyance for the time being.

  'What I really
came for,' Paul said, 'is to tell you about the shed dance I'm having at my place. It's being held a week on Tuesday and you're all invited. I'll send over the station wagon for you around eight o'clock, so don't worry about transport.' Subtle this, Kate realized. He was saving them using petrol, although it was a very small amount which they would consume. But he seemed to think of every little thing that would save them money, and this was one of the things Kate liked about him. Just one, Kate thought when, ten minutes later, she watched him stride away towards the road—or rather, the track—where he had left his vehicle.

  'We ought to move our car,' Kate said. 'It's in the way of people getting right up to the house.'

  'What people?' inquired Lin, still admiring the poinsettias she had just planted. 'I left it there because I never expected anyone to be using the drive—if you can call that overgrown strip of ground a drive. Paul usually comes on his horse,' she added with a small sigh. 'I do wish he'd let me have a go on it.'

  'A go?' in some amusement from Cherry. And then, thoughtfully, 'I daresay he'd let you have a horse if you were to suggest it—give him a hint, I mean.'

  'You think so?' eagerly. 'I could then ride among those gorgeous giants over there—and maybe one of them would sweep me off my charger, just like I said.' She stopped. 'That's no gorgeous giant! I must get my binoculars!' Giving her hands another flick to get rid of the last particles of soil, Lin went inside, leaving the other two to stare across the sunlit land to where two riders could be seen—on the High Creek Downs side—leisurely cantering across the bush.

  'It's a woman,' said Kate, turning as Lin reappeared with the binoculars.

  'My… A very smart female in cream-coloured jodhpurs— And who do you think she's with?'

  Cherry said, briefly and in low unhurried tones:

  'She's with Mark.'

  'Right! But how extraordinary. Can't for the life of me imagine his riding with a female during working hours!' Lin held out the binoculars to Kate. 'Want to have a look?'