made a winding-sheet round him, and the sting of frost was live in the air. The track rose by twists and grades, with a great purple sky widening as the earth dropped away. Flax-leaves slashed their faces, blinding the paths that the horses took with strong shoulder-heaves and chest-breathing. The flung-out breast of a hill above jagged the star-clusters. They swung round the curve of it where late snow lay yet in the hollows, and took clear country again, with sparse tussock and slag. A wire fence, like a dewed spider-web, cut the black scarp beyond, and Murray cheered as a schoolboy when it sung behind to the touch of one hoof only.
Hands were numb on the rein; the breath of the eternal snows was too near and too pure; the iron chill of the stirrup made the feet tingle and throb. The smell of bush blew across them; caught and ripped them with a thousand damp hands. It was blind and savage, and sensuous with its rich heavy odours; and the ferny rottenness was dank under-foot.
“How much more o’ this is there?” growled Carr, when the way tilted up a bare hill with a sprinkling of snow on the flint. And Tod answered:
“Divil knows—an’ Lou, if they’re two. But, be all things, I misdoubt it this night.”
Talk dulled in the men; but the horses had the great glad hearts that tire not, and Lou’s
