us
cynicism, there's a good deal of difference between a penniless
adventurer and the possessor of quarter of a million. Unattached men
with money can be so useful. As soon as Rosamond Tallant gets
better--if she does--I'll make her ask him to meet us. I know he used
to be a great friend of Luke's....'

CHAPTER 10

Lady Bridget had read so far when the door of the bathroom opened and
McKeith came out, clean again in fresh riding gear, and with a valise
ready packed and strapped in his hand.

The noise of the cattle became much louder, though the mob was not yet
in sight.

'I wish I hadn't got to go off before the branding,' he said. 'These
Breeza Downs people always want to claim every cleanskin*. You might
tell Ninnis and Moongarr Bill, Biddy, to keep a sharp look-out. And now
let me have my grub--I'm sorry, dear, to have you hurry up your
dinner.' He strode along to the dining-room, too absorbed in his own
annoyances to notice his wife's face or to ask any questions about her
letters.

[*cleanskin--unbranded calf]

Lady Bridget gathered them up and followed him. The Malay boy waited at
table with the assistance of a servant girl from Leuraville, the only
female domestic--with the exception of Mrs Hensor--on the head-station.

McKeith swallowed his soup and ate the savoury stew prepared by the
Chinese cook with the appetite of a man who had been all day in the
saddle. Lady Bridget, who was an extraordinarily rapid eater, as well
as a fastidious one, had finished long before he was half-way through.
She sat silent at first, while he growled over the outrage upon the
horses. Then suddenly visualising the poor beasts lying stiff in
congealed blood, and the mailman's exaggerated description of trees
black with crows, she flamed out in wrathful horror, and was as anxious
as her husband that the perpetrators of the crime should be brought to
justice. He seemed pleased, and a little surprised at the ebullition.

'I thought you weren't taking it quite in, Biddy. I am glad you think
like me, though I expect yours is the humanitarian view and mine's the
practical one. This touches my pocket, you see. Well, anyway, you won't
be so keen now on defending the Unionists.'

'I think they've got as much right to fight for their principles as we
have for ours, but I don't think they've the right to torture horses,'
she rejoined. Her sympathy with oppressed shearers and dispossessed
natives struck always a jarring not