‘Not out my way.’

Once through an opening in the crowd she saw Mr Hep Bodine in his Sunday clothes, and she turned around quickly and went another way. Up by a feed store she met a woman dressed much as she was dressed. She carried bunches of coarse lace under her arm.

‘Do you-all know any folks about a-swappen critters?’ Ellen asked.

‘He is a-traden some. Go down that a way.’

Ellen found the place where the men were selling horses, in an alley behind an old hotel. She looked into the crowd eagerly for Jock, but he was not there. Men were riding the horses up and down, tired hacks, bony underfed nags, the kind Ellen knew best. Farmers and traders were bargaining, betting, cursing, laughing.

‘Even swap and I’ll give you a drink to boot.’

‘I’ll give you nine dollars and seventy-five cents for that-there old mare and that’s all I’ll give, every dum cent.’

Ellen touched a man’s arm and asked, holding his coat sleeve: ‘Do you know a man by the name of Jock West? Do you know Jock West?’

The man shook his head and walked away. The woman with the lace came to the alley and held a short conference with the man. When they had finished speaking and she had turned aside, Ellen stood in her way.

‘Are you lost from your folks?’ the woman asked.

‘Yes ma’am. Tessie is my folks.’ A pain pushed at her breath and made it quick in her mouth mingling with her words. The woman was smiling with the flesh beside her nose and that across her checks, and her nose sniffed at the air. Her lip drew up from her teeth and took a feeble part in the smile.

‘Well I do know, lost now!’

‘Do you know a woman named Tessie that goes the roads with a man named Jock West? Tessie West, married to Jock West? As you go along the road you might maybe see a sight of Tessie sometime. Jock, he’s a great one to swap the critters. Spick span wagon as good as new. Would you tell Tessie for me where I am? Maybe she could write me a letter. Tessie can write. He would be a-goen south by now.’

‘We are a-maken hit towards Parksville where we aim to stay a spell. But we might…’

‘If you did happen to run across…’

‘Well I do know! Lost!’ The woman was faintly excited under her dreariness and faintly pleased.

‘If you did happen to run across Tessie would you tell her?’

‘I’d be right glad to favour you,’ she said. ‘We might run onto your folks now. For a fact we might.’

‘Tell her Ellen is at a farm out a piece from Rushfield, on Mr Hep Bodine’s place, if you see Tessie.’

‘I couldn’t gorrentee to remember hit unlessen you write it down. Dave, there, he can read hit.’

They borrowed a pencil from a man and Ellen wrote on a piece of paper they picked up from the ground: