fened. The small
pale face poked forward between the folds of her motor veil, and all
the O'Hara spirit flashed as she spoke to the group of malcontents.

'How dare you! Stand back. I thought Australian men were men, and that
they didn't insult women.'

There was an uproar in the veranda, and more cries of 'Shame,
Steadbolt, you! ... You just git, Gumsucker Steve. We ain't got no use
for you, Micky Phayle.... Can't you see a lady as is a lady?' sounded
from the bar and parlour. It was the landlady who asked the last
question. The two reprobates who had been asleep, lunged off the
veranda, and made a feeble assault on Steadbolt, who still clung to the
reins. The man, lashed to fury by the scorn ringing in Lady Bridget's
voice, made a last envenomed attack.

'It ain't us GENUINE Australians that insults you.... Takes a mongrel
Scotchy for that.... Say, Ladyship, just you ask your husband what a
sort of an insult he's got ready for YOU up at his Bachelor's Quarters
at Moongarr.'

The words had not left his mouth when McKeith's driving whip whizzed in
the air and raised blood on the speaker's cheek. Steadbolt dropped his
hold of the roan leader's bridle and fell back screaming imprecations.
At a touch, the buggy-horses bounded forward.

'Sit tight, Biddy,' said her husband. 'Up you get, Cudgee,' he shouted.
The black boy leaped to the back-seat, and in a moment the buggy
swerved by the bullock-dray that was drawn up a little further down the
road, and the excited horses galloped past the nineteen public houses
and the zinc-roofed shanties, past the new quarter of tents and
whirring machinery, past the deserted shafts and desolate mullock
heaps, then way out along the sandy wheel-track into the unpopulated
Bush.

For the first mile scarcely a word was exchanged between husband and
wife. The horses were fresh and McKeith had enough to do to keep them
from bolting. Moreover, even in emotional phases, he was always silent
while chewing the cud of his reflections. Bridget was thinking, too.
She had an uneasy sense of startlement, without exactly knowing why she
felt startled in that inward way. It was as though some great obscene
bird of flight had brushed her with its wings, and brought vaguely to
her consciousness unpleasant possibilities. But presently she became
interested in watching Colin's handling of the team. She had often sat
behind such a team, but never beside such a splendid whip. Impulsively
she made some s