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she had had enough for today, and somehow Craig wasn’t being such a help any more.
    ‘Thanks, Craig,’ she called, ‘I’ll never forget your kindness. Just throw my gear out. Then you’d better get going.
    ‘Georgina, I ’
    ‘Get going, Craig.’
    ‘I’ll carry your bags in at least,’ he protested.
    ‘No. No! I’m a man. I’m a feller.’—Joanne’s tag.—‘What if anyone sees?’
    ‘But you will get in touch?’ he appealed.
    ‘I will,’ she promised.
    Before he could start again, Georgina grabbed up an armful of luggage and fairly raced with it to the hut door. She had to put everything down to open up, but she did it so quickly and so adroitly that he had no chance at all of following her, of beginning another conversation. He had been helpful, he had been sweet really, and she couldn’t have done without him, but
    She fairly threw the things in, then she went in after them, slammed the door and turned the key. She would collect the remaining luggage after he had left.
    It was some time before he went, she thought. What on earth was keeping him? He had been anxious not to come here before, he had said he had been warned off the place, yet now he didn’t seem to want to go.
    Men, Georgina thought in despair, men!
    ‘Yet I,' Georgina looked around her and found a speckled mirror tacked to the wall and went across to it to address a khaki-haired boy who looked back at her, ‘am about to become one myself.’
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    Yes, Georgina decided, she was going to be a man. For several weeks (less a day to enable her to get away in time) she was going to hide here and decide what she wanted next out of life. No, that was wrong, she knew what she wanted; she wanted the inland, but she knew, too, she couldn’t have it. So she was going to hide out and ponder on the next best.
    Meanwhile she was going to revel in it all, drown herself in the gold of it, sink herself in the Mirage Country that she loved so much. Possibly ... no, more likely, and it was a sad thought ... it would be for the last time. Once she went back to the city there would be nothing to bring her here again. So while she could she would take the bike out, find a track and ride and ride into the distance, and somewhere during the ride a mirage would appear—the blue swimming scene to which her stepfather had given a scientific explanation yet a romantic one as well. A thing of dreams to Georgina.
    ‘Perfect,’ she said aloud, coming back to the present, and she began looking around her.
    The hut was small but comprehensive, a stark hut for a male occupant. A plain wooden bed with a plain cover, brown table, brown dresser, hooks on the walls to hang clothes. She must remember to hang only male-type clothing.
    There was sufficient cooking gear but certainly nothing fancy, and, characteristic of a man, it was placed within easy reach. Simple saucepans, a frying pan, a kettle. Cutlery but no tablecloth on which to place it, just the bare table. There was a rag rug on the floor and a flypaper curl from the ceiling, and that was all.
    Where did she shower or bath? Lots of such places had portable arrangements, or squares enclosed modestly in hessian attached to an outside wall. Georgina looked but found nothing—oh, yes, there was something—a large uncovered shower rose extended from the tank. She shrank back. If Mr Larry Roper thought she was going to bathe out there without concealment he had another thought coming. Why, even men prefer not to go on display!
    She toyed with the idea of adapting the bedcover for privacy. Even though the hut was isolated, a long way from the activities of the homestead and ninety-nine per cent obscure, she still did not fancy standing outside every morning to soap and scrub. Yet such a method as a draped bedcover would only soak the cover, and by the heavy texture of the coarse cretonne it would take a long while to dry.
    Eventually she unearthed a large plastic basin. Evidently the previous males