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Chapter 40

At last father got well, and said he didn't see what good Aileen could
do stopping any longer in the Hollow, unless she meant to follow up
bush-ranging for a living. She'd better go back and stay along with her
mother. If George Storefield liked to have 'em there, well and good;
things looked as if it wasn't safe now for a man's wife and daughter,
and if he'd got into trouble, to live peaceable and quiet in their own
house. He didn't think they need be afraid of any one interfering with
them for the future, though. Here dad looked so dark that Aileen began
to think he was going to be ill again. We'd all start and go a bit of
the way with her next day--to the old stockyard or a bit farther; she
could ride from there, and take the horse back with her and keep him if
she liked.

'You've been a good gal to me,' he says to her; 'you always was one; and
your mother's been a good woman and a good wife; tell her I said so. I'd
no call to have done the things I have, or left home because it wasn't
tidy and clean and a welcome always when I came back. It's been rough on
her, and on you too, my gal; and if it'll do her any good, tell her I'm
dashed sorry. You can take this trifle of money. You needn't boggle at
it; it's honest got and earned, long before this other racket. Now you
can go. Kiss your old dad; like as not you won't see him again.'

We'd got the horses in. I lifted her up on to the saddle, and she rode
out. Her horse was all on the square, so there was no harm in her taking
him back with her, and off we went. Dad didn't go after all. We took it
easy out to the old stockyard. We meant to camp there for half-an-hour,
and then to send her on, with Warrigal to keep with her and show her the
way home.

We didn't want to make the time too short. What a lovely day it was! The
mountain sides were clogged up with mist for an hour after we started;
still, any one that knew the climate would have said it was going to be
a fine day. There wasn't a breath of air; everything was that still that
not a leaf on any of the trees so much as stirred.

When we came to the pass out of the valley, we none of us got off; it
was better going up than coming down, and it would have tired Aileen
out at the start to walk up. So the horses had to do their climbing. It
didn't matter much to them. We were all used to it, horses and riders.
Jim and I went first, then Warrigal, then Aileen and Starlight. After we
got up