The Sanguine Scot, anxious to make amends for the telegrams, was full of
suggestions for smoothing out the difficulties of the road. Like many
men of his type, whatever he did he did it with all his heart and
soul--hating, loving, avenging, or forgiving with equal energy; and he
now applied himself to helping the Maluka "make things easy for her," as
zealously as he had striven to "block her somehow."

Sorting out pack-bags, he put one aside, with a "We'll have to spare that
for her duds. It won't do for her to be short. She'll have enough to
put up with, without that." But when I thanked him, and said I could
manage nicely with only one, as I would not need much on the road, he and
the Maluka sat down and stared at each other in dismay. "That's for
everything you'll need till the waggons come," they explained; "your road
kit goes in your swag."

The waggons went "inside" once a year--"after the Wet," and would arrive
at the homestead early in June. As it was then only the middle of
January, I too sat down, and stared in dismay from the solitary pack-bag
to the great, heaped-up pile that had been sorted out as indispensable.
"You'll have to cull your herd a bit, that's all," Mac said; and
needlework was pointed out as a luxury. Then books were "cut out," after
that the house linen was looked to, and as I hesitated over the number of
pillow-cases we could manage with, Mac cried triumphantly: "You won't
need these anyway, for there's no pillows."

The Maluka thought he had prepared me for everything in the way of
roughness; but in a flash we knew that I had yet to learn what a bushman
means by rough.