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Peggy had been crying, her eyes were red-rimmed and she kept sniffing into a handkerchief; his mother was pale-faced and his father ate hurriedly, saying there were dingoes about so he would have to go out again.
    ‘I’ll come with you, Da,’ Ralph offered, but his father refused, saying that Benne and some of the hired boys were going with him.
    ‘Stay with your ma,’ he said gruffly. ‘Don’t go raking around Sydney. She could do wi’ some company.’
    ‘I’m all right, Ralph,’ his mother said after his father had picked up his rifle and gone out. ‘You don’t have to stay. You could have gone instead of your father.’
    ‘He won’t take time off, Ma. You know that. I could manage the sheep station, I know how, but he won’t let me. He has to do it all himself!’
    ‘It makes him feel good.’ Meg smiled. ‘He’s so proud of what he’s achieved.’
    Ralph wasn’t convinced and a sudden thought occurred to him. ‘Are you sure it’s not becauseI’m not his real son? If Peggy had been a boy instead of a girl would she be allowed to take charge?’
    ‘That’s a dreadful thing to say.’ His mother was angry and rose from the table. ‘You’ve both always been treated ’same!’
    ‘But there can’t be many farmers in this country who share the land and stock between their sons and daughters!’ he insisted. ‘Everybody I know, the sons get the farm and the daughters get a dowry!’
    ‘Peggy might not want to get married,’ his mother said sharply, ‘and if she didn’t then she would always be dependent on you to take care of her. Your da doesn’t want that. He wants her to be independent and so do I!’
    Ralph excused himself and got up from the table. He was behaving abominably, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. He was so very confused. ‘I’m going out,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
    ‘Don’t get drunk!’ his mother called after him as he went through the door. ‘That’s how trouble starts!’
    He came back and planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘I won’t,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not going into Sydney. I’m going walkabout with Jack.’
    He took a blanket, which he put over one shoulder and secured with a belt around his waist; he wore his oldest trousers and thick shirt and carried a stout stick. He had sturdy boots on his feet, whilst Jack was barefoot and carried noblanket but had draped a strip of wide cotton cloth around his bare chest which partly covered his cut-down trousers and bare legs. He too carried a stick.
    ‘Where are we going?’ Ralph asked as they strode out away from the farm and towards the hills.
    ‘Who knows?’ Jack replied. ‘We’ll go where our feet and dreams take us.’
    Dusk was settling as they climbed and although the civilization of Sydney with newly built stone houses and white cottages was encroaching upon the hills above the harbour, it hadn’t yet reached the bush high above Creek Farm. As he looked down, Ralph could see the grazing flocks of sheep belonging to his father and Jack’s father, Benne. They could hear the occasional shot of rifle fire which told them of the crusade against the wild dog of Australia, the dingo.
    Up here on this higher ground the hazy blur of the distant Blue Mountains made them seem approachable. They could hear the incessant croak of cicadas and the cacophony of birdsong all around them, the raucous cry of the cockatoo and parrot and the squeak and rustle of nocturnal animals coming out for their nightly forage. As they walked, they disturbed sleeping lizards and reptiles, their feet crackling on the carpet of dry grey leaves of the eucalyptus and gum trees which swayed above them.
    ‘Here,’ Jack said after two hours’ walking,when with Ralph stumbling in the gloom and relying on his stick to probe the rough ground, they came to a small clearing, a grassy area surrounded by sweet-smelling bushes and ferns. A faint light from the sky showed through the grey-barked,