WE OF THE NEVER-NEVER
in amazement. “By George!" he said to those near him, “she is a goer, a regular goer”; and after much careful thought wired an inane sugges- tion about waiting until after the Wet.
Darwin laughed outright, and an emphatic: “Wife determined, coming Tuesday's train,” from the Maluka, was followed by a complete breakdown at the Katherine.
Then Darwin came in twos and threes to discuss the situation, and while the men offered every form of service and encouragement, the women-folk spoke of a woman “going bush” as “sheer madness,” “Besides, no woman travels during the Wet,” they said, and the Maluka “hoped she would prove the exception.”
“But she'll be bored to death if she does reach the homestead alive,” they prophesied; and I told them they were not very complimentary to the Maluka.
“You don’t understand,” they hastened to explain, “He’ll be camping out most of his time, miles away from the homestead,” and I said, “ So will I.”
“So you think,” they corrected. "But you'll find that a woman alone in a camp of men is decidedly out of place”; and I felt severely snubbed.
The Maluka suggested that he might yet succeed in persuading some suitable woman to come out with us, as maid or companion; but the opposition, wagging wise heads, pursed incredulous lips, as it declared that “‘no one but a fool would go out 5
