Page:The romance of Runnibede (IA romanceofrunnibe00rudd).pdf/76

IT was sunset—a brilliant sunset that mocked the parched, drought-gripped earth; strips and streaks and streams of it were slashed across a violet sky. Also beautiful, yet so heartless, so hopeless! God! the earth was crying for rain! Rain! No one wanted glorious sunsets—no one then wanted sun of any kind—the sun was hell!

And it was then that the Governor, with Warabah jogging along behind him, came into view at the wild lime trees inside the home paddock gate, and neither of them, I fancy, turned in the saddle to admire the sunset. They rode along slowly, heeling their tired, weary horses at every stride, for the animals were pretty well done in—so were they themselves. Nothing in the bush world takes more out of you than the last stage of a long, hard ride. And the Governor and Warabah were at the end of a very hard ride. They had been away a week and more at Brisbane, where the Governor had gone to interview his banker and the stock agents. They returned in two days, covering 220 miles as the crow flies. But at Westbrook Station they were given fresh horses by MeLean, a friend of the Governer’s; so, leaving their own there to rest and to be looked after, got them again when returning. How those early squatters assisted each other!