under, to him, difficult
social conditions. But what a MAN she had felt him to be then, among
the other men!

It seemed an outrage on her idealised image of him to hear him speaking
in that dry, caustic manner.

'Ah, that's different. The Gulf natives have a nasty way of barbing and
poisoning their spears. An ordinary spear-thrust is nothing to either
black or white. Wombo could have pulled the thing out, and in a few
hours the gin would have been all right again.'

'You think so--well in a few hours she was in a high fever. I took her
temperature this morning when I re-bandaged the wound.'

McKeith laughed shortly.

'It wouldn't be surprising, if you had given her grog and tobacco and
as much meat as she wanted. That what you did, eh?'

'Yes, it was. They were both starving.'

'Well, I wouldn't bank on your stock of medical knowledge, Biddy--not
if I was down with fever or otherwise incapacitated. But that's not the
point--which is that those blacks have been kept here against my
express orders.'

'They've been kept here by MY orders,' flamed Lady Bridget.

McKeith's jaw squared, and there showed in his eyes that ugly devil
which many a black and white man had seen, but never his wife before.

'Look here, milady--there can be only one boss on this station. And now
you'll excuse me if I act according to my own discretion.'

Without another word he walked up the veranda and down the few steps
connecting it with the Old Humpey. She heard him go into his office,
and presently the door of it slammed behind him. She knew that he was
going to the culprits in the hide-house, and wondered what punishment
he would mete unto them. Had he gone to the office for his gun? At this
moment, anything seemed possible to Lady Bridget's heated temper and
excited imagination.

She stood waiting, absorbed in her fears, so abstracted from her
ordinary outside surroundings that she was unaware of the approach of
two horsemen from the Gully Crossing. They did not stop at the garden
gate, but made for the usual station entrance at the back. One of them,
lingering behind the other, gazed earnestly at Lady Bridget's tense
little figure and bent head, poised in a listening attitude and
conveying to him the impression that something momentous had happened
or was about to happen. And just then, appalling shrieks, from the rear
of the home, justified the impression.

Lady Bridget ran through the sitting-room to the veranda behind, whi