RS--otherwise, wild cattle from the broken country at the foot
of Moongarr Range.

She left the hammock and went again to the veranda railing. Looking
along a side path from the Chinaman's garden she saw that Mrs Hensor
and her boy--the yellow-headed urchin of about six--were hastening
towards the Bachelors' Quarters. The woman carried a basket of
vegetables, the boy hugged a big pawpaw fruit which he held up proudly
as his mother responded in her free-and-easy, rather sulky fashion to
Lady Bridget's stiff nod. 'It's for the House,' cried the child. 'Fo
Wung said I was to bring it up.'

Lady Bridget made a wry face--she did not like pawpaws.

'Very well, Tommy, and if you're good you can have what's left
tomorrow.'

'That's all right,' responded Tommy in bush formula.

'Have you seen anything of your master--or the postman?' asked Lady
Bridget of Mrs Hensor.

'I believe Mr McKeith is coming on ahead with Harry the Blower,' said
Mrs Hensor. 'Look sharp, Tommy, the cattle will be at the yard
directly, and I've got my dinner to cook for the whole lot of them,
seeing that some visitors aren't good enough for the house.'

The woman pointed her last sentence by a malicious glance at the
mistress of Moongarr.

'I suppose that is what your master keeps you here for--to cook for the
visitors at the Quarters, Mrs Hensor,' said Lady Bridget, with incisive
sweetness.

Mrs Hensor flushed scarlet, but she checked an impudent reply. Pulling
Tommy angrily along, she hurried up to the four-roomed, zinc-roofed
humpey and its lean-to kitchen, protected by a bough shade, which lay
between the head-station and the gully, with the stockyard close to it,
and which constituted her domain. It annoyed Mrs Hensor to hear McKeith
called her master. She always spoke of her late husband as having been
the Boss-mate on that--to him fatal--exploring expedition. Also, she
resented having all the bachelors 'dumped down'--as she phrased it--on
her, while the 'Ladyship's swell staff' was spared the trouble. At
present the Bachelors' Quarters was fairly full. Mr Ninnis,
store-keeper and overseer in the owner's absence, abode there
permanently, and just now, there were Zack Duppo, the horse-breaker,
and a young man from Breeza Downs--a combined cattle and sheep station
about fifty miles distant--who had come to help in the mustering and to
collect any beasts strayed from the Breeza Downs' herd.

The gully crossing lay below the boulders of rock