that went on in the narrow space between the wool bales and the canvas
roof above. There were women up there and little children. She saw
bedding spread and a baby's clothes fluttering out to dry, and tin
pannikins and chunks of salt beef slung to the ropes that bound the
wool bales together. Then, when the wool was wetted, or when some other
teams behind disputed the right of way in lurid terms which Lady
Bridget was now beginning to accept as inevitably concomitant with
bullocks, the first dray would proceed, all the cattle bells jingling
and making, in the distance, not unpleasant music.

It was the horses that interested Lady Bridget most, for, like all the
O'Haras, she was a born horsewoman. Though she was moved almost to
tears by the spur scars on the lean sides of some of them--spirited
creatures in which she recognised the marks of breeding--and by the
unkempt condition of some that were just from grass, she decided within
herself that there could never be a lack of interest and excitement in
a land where such horseflesh abounded.

Presently she had her first sight of the typical stockman got up in
'township rig.' Spotless moleskins, new Crimean shirt, regulation silk
handkerchief, red, of course, and brand new, tied in a sailor's knot at
the neck, leather belt with pouches of every shape and size slung from
it, tobacco pouch, watch pouch, knife pouch and what not. Cabbage tree
hat of intricate plait pushed back to the back of the head and held
firm by a thin strap coming down to the upper lip and caught in two
gaps on either side of the prominent front teeth--there are very few
stockmen who have kept all their front teeth. Stockwhip, out of
commission for the present, with an elaborately carved and beautifully
polished sandal-wood handle hanging down behind, a long snake-like lash
coiled in three loops over the left shoulder.

Lady Bridget knew most of the types of men who have to do with
horses--huntsmen, trainers, jockeys, riding masters and the rest, but
the Australian bush-rider is a product by itself. She liked this son of
the gum forest-tanned face, taut nerves, alert eyes piercing long
distances--a man, vital, shrewd, simple as a child, cunning as an
animal. And the way he sat in his saddle, the poise of the lean, lanky
muscular frame! No wonder the first stockman seemed to the wild blacks
a new sort of beast with four legs and two bodies. And the clean-limbed
mettlesome creature under him! Man and be