The lure of wild places got into his feet. As he wrote down a careful
list of the things they were to take in their swags he looked up and
actually suggested that she should wire to her uncle for the money so
that they need not waste a day more. As for the prospect of work, that
worried him not at all.
"You're always sure of a meal, anyway, if you're a sun-downer," he
said. "And usually there's a job of sorts that'll keep you in grub. I
say, old girl, we'll have to live on damper and billy-tea. It's the
finest stuff going!"
He argued long with himself about how many blankets to take, how much
tea and flour; he talked about the kind of boots best fitted for walking
on unmade roads: one day when they went out together he discovered a
patent "swaggie's friend"--a knife at one end of a composition handle
and a fork at the other.
"It's a good thing to take a fork," he said reflectively, "you needn't
eat with your fingers if you do. Fried sheep eaten with the fingers is
rather messy at times."
They arranged for Mrs. King to collect and forward their letters from
home as soon as they gave her an address; Marcella did not mention the
chief reason for getting away from Sydney now. She had an instinctive
feeling that Mrs. King would think she was raving mad to run away into
the Bush with an unborn child.
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