za Downs to-day--caught us up with the tailing mob and fetched back
their new chum and Zack Duppo, leaving us awful short-handed--so that
if Joe Casey doesn't fetch in the milkers so early to-morrow you'll
know it's because I've had to send him out herding. They're doing their
shearing early at Breeza Downs with shearers Windeatt has imported from
the south, and he wants police protection for them and himself.'

Lady Bridget laughed.

'Harris and his two constables will have enough to do if they are to
protect the district.'

'That's just what Windeatt has been clamouring about. Now the
Government have sent up a military patrol, I believe. But they say it
isn't strong enough, and all the able-bodied men on the Leura are
enrolling as specials. No doubt, that's what been keeping the Boss. You
may be sure if there's fighting to be done--black or white--he'll be in
it.'

Lady Bridget angered Ninnis by her apparent indifference, and he bade
her a cross good-night. Had it been anybody else she would have
encouraged him to stay and talk. As it was, she resumed her lonely
pacing, and did not go to her room till the whole station was abed.

When at last she went to sleep she dreamed again vividly of Willoughby
Maule.

CHAPTER 13

McKeith returned, without warning, the following afternoon. He was not
alone, but had spurred on in advance of the other two men he had
brought with him. Lady Bridget, reading in her hammock at the upper end
of the veranda, heard the sound of a horse approaching, and saw her
husband appear above the hill from the Gully Crossing. She got to her
feet, expecting that he would ride up to the veranda, calling
'Biddy--Biddy,' as he usually did after an absence. But instead, he
pulled up suddenly, turned his horse in the direction of the Bachelors'
Quarters, and passed from her line of vision.

She supposed, naturally, that someone at the Quarters had attracted his
attention, then remembering that Ninnis and the white men were out with
the cattle, wondered, as the minutes went by, who and what detained him.

Tommy Hensor, running up from the garden with his evening dole of
vegetables, enlightened her.

'Boss come back, Ladyship. I can see him. He is up, talking to Mother.'

Lady Bridget was too proud a woman to feel petty jealousy, nor would it
have occurred to her to be jealous of Mrs Hensor. Her sentiment of
dislike towards that person was of quite another order. But she was
just in the