blankets when the girl rode into camp and jumped down from her horse.
'I nearly lost you twice. She laughed and pulled off the cap.
'Gave me a horrible night. ' She shook down the shiny braids.
'Coffee! Oh good, I'm famished.'
Menacingly Sean climbed to his feet and with clenched fists he glared
at her, but undismayed she hobbled her horse and turned it loose before
acknowledging him again.
'Don't stand on ceremony, please be seated. ' And she grinned at him
with such devilment in her grey eyes, aping so faithfully his stance
with hands on those indecent hips, that Sean suddenly found himself
smiling. He tried to stop it for he knew it was an admission of
surrender, but his effort was so unsuccessful that she burst into
delighted laughter.
'How's your cooking? ' he demanded.
'So SO.' 'You'd better brush up on it because from now on you're
working your passage. ' Later, when he had sampled it for the first
time, he admitted grudgingly,
'Not bad-in the circumstances,' and wiped the plate with a crust of
bread.
'You are too kind, sir.' She thanked him and lugged her blanket-roll
into the shade, spread it, pulled off her boots, wriggled her toes and
lay back with a sigh.
Sean positioned his own bedroll with care so that, when he opened his
eyes, without turning his head he could watch her from under the brim
of the hat that covered his face.
He woke at midday and saw that she slept with one cheek in her open
hand, the lashes of her eyes meshed together and a few loose strands of
dark hair across a face that was damp and flushed in the drowsy heat.
He watched her for a long time before silently rising and crossing to
his saddle-bags. When he went down to the stream he took with him his
flat canvas toilet-bag, the remaining pair of breeches that were
neither patched nor too badly stained and a clean silk shirt.
Sitting on a rock beside the water, naked and freshly scrubbed, he
regarded his face in the polished steel mirror.
'A big job. ' He sighed and started snipping at the great bush of
beard which had not felt the scissors in dime years.
At dusk, selfconscious as a girl in her first party dress, Sean walked
back into the camp. They were all awake. Dirk and the girl sat
together on her blanket in such earnest conversation that neither of
them noticed his arrival. Mbejane was busy at the fire; he rocked back
on his heels and examined Sean without change of expression.
'We'd better eat and get going.'
Dirk and the girl looked up. Her eyes narrowed and then widened
thoughtfully.
Dirk gaped at him, and then, 'your beard's all funny-' he announced,
and the girl tried desperately to quell her laughter.
'Get your blankets rolled up, boy.'
Sean tried to break Dirk's grip on the subject, but like a bulldog Dirk
held on relentlessly.
-and why are you wearing your best clothes, Dad?'
