Which meant not only was there no hurry, but every reason to take it slow. While there was a mouthful of grass to eat, there was no reason to move on. Nor did McKenzie take them on the direct route on the plains, with dust and flies and the dried dung of ten thousand other beasts to tread in. This course led them along the foothills of the ranges, far enough from the rivers that sheep rarely grazed there, but with small pools still seeping in the gullies. And, if the cattle had to climb the slopes, they could do it slowly, munching.

Clancy had slept better in his swag than he had for years: true sleep, not the sleep of mere bodily exhaustion. He’d eaten better too, on the lightest, moistest damper he had ever eaten, still hot from the ashes, spread with butter — butter! — then drizzled with treacle or raspberry jam made by letting wild berries sit in a hot billy with sugar. He had eaten many slices, each as large as doorstops, Mrs McKenzie beaming at the compliment to her cooking.

There had been pancakes with pale green bush honey, hearth cakes thick with wild berries, even a young swan cooked in an earth oven along with native yams when they camped by a waterhole for a few days. Mrs McKenzie could make gingerbread in her camp oven, or bake a fish wrapped in wet grass in the coals, served with small sour fruits the size of his little finger that tasted like lemon but had tiny juice-filled globules that popped only when you chewed them.

Rose, it seemed, was relegated to the washing up. ‘You try getting Joe to make a damper, you can’t tell if you’re trying to eat a rock instead,’ said Mrs McKenzie, that first breakfast.

‘Joe?’

Mrs McKenzie kept her eyes cast politely down, the way Rose had done back at Overflow. ‘That’s his name. And I’m Charlie, if anyone asks. Me and her don’t go into towns,’ said Mrs McKenzie shortly.

‘How do you get butter, way out here?’

‘Struth man, you see them cows? Them calves? Where do you think butter comes from?’

Clancy grinned. ‘Milk. And milk comes from cows. But you’ve no pen.’

‘Joe has a way with animals. Feeds a few of her pets a hunk of damper each night, then hobbles them when they’re licking their chops and hoping for more. I let the cream rise overnight, skim it off, put it in a jar. A good day’s shaking in the saddle and there’s butter, and there’s buttermilk for your damper too, to keep it light, with a bit of wood ash water in the dough to help it along.’ Mrs McKenzie grinned. ‘I can make a soufflé too. I’ll show you come spring, when we find some wild eggs, or if we can trade for hen eggs.’