McKeith.

'Yah! Look at him and his spanking team! What price honest labour, you
blamed scab of a squatter? Just you wait a bit. It'll be our turn soon
to burn all you blanked capitalists off the Leura.'

The lanky bushman took up the jeering note.

'Pretty flash turn-out, ain't it! My word, you think yourself a bloated
fine gentleman now you've married into the British hairystocracy, don't
you, Mister Colin McKeith? You can take it from us, boys, he's the
meanest cuss that ever downed a harmless nigger.... Ask him what the
twenty-five notches on his gun stand for?'

'And I tell YOU what it is, Steve Baines. There'll be another notch on
my gun, and it won't be for a nigger, if you give me any more of your
insolence,' said McKeith coolly. 'Get out of the way, men. Let the
horses go, Cudgee. Ready, Biddy?'

But Cudgee, out of malice or stupidity, did not let the roans go or
else someone else put a restraining hand on the reins. The man with the
ragged beard roared out.

'Ho, you think you're going to ride over us!--you and your fine
ladyship! Wot do we care about the British hairystocracy. What we're
asking for is the rights of labour, and we mean to have 'em. Do you
want to know what he's done to us boys? Fired us out straight away cos
we was 'avin' a bit of a spell and a drink to keep the life in us after
we'd close up killed ourselves lifting that there ladyship's blanked
hundred-ton weight of pianner on to the dray....'

Moongarr Bill's chivalrous instinct flamed to a counter attack. He had
just mounted, but swung down from his saddle and made a rush at the
speaker. McKeith's stern voice stopped him.

'Don't be a fool, Bill. Let the brutes alone and push on with the pack.
This is not the time for a row. As for you, Jim Steadbolt--you know me,
and you know that if this was any other sort of occasion, you'd pay on
the nail for your infernal cheek.... Leave go of those reins. D'ye
hear'; for the man of the ragged beard was jerking the near leader's
bit and putting the mettlesome animal on its haunches.

'Damn you! Let go.'

He leaned forward to strike at Steadbolt with his riding whip, but the
lash had caught round the pole-bar of the buggy, and he could not
extricate it. Bridget tried to help him. He turned to her for an
instant, a soft gleam of tenderness shining through the steely anger on
his face.

'No. Keep still, my dear. Don't be frightened.'

'I frightened!' She gave a little laugh. Her form stif