ct in her vehicle roundly abused the township from end to
end. Crying her cause in a big strident voice, she insulted the
inhabitants individually and in the mass, and wherever several people
were assembled she pulled up and poured out upon them the vials of her
wrath in a fine flow of vituperation; and after every few sentences she
interpolated an almost pathetic plea to somebody, she did not care whom,
to step forward and resent her criticism that she might have an
opportunity of hammering decency and religion into the benighted
inhabitants of an unregenerate place.

'Who stole the goats?' she screamed, and, receiving no answer, screamed
the question from house to house.

'Waddy's a township of thieves an' hussies!' she cried, 'thieves an'
hussies! Gimme me goats or I'll have the law on you all--you low, mean
stealers an' robbers, ye! Who stole the goats? Who came by night an'
robbed a decent widdy woman of her beautiful goats? Who? Who? Who? Say
you didn't, someone! Gi' me the lie, you lot o' gaol-birds an'
assassinators!'

All Waddy turned out to hear, and many followed the woman up the road.
The school children heard the noisy procession go by with amazement and
regret, and the visitor grew shriller and fiercer as her search
progressed. At length she discovered what she declared to be one of her
goats in the possession of Mrs. Hogan, and she left her waggon and
charged the latter, who fled in terror, bolting all her doors and
throwing up a barricade in the passage. But the stranger was not to be
foiled: she sat down on the doorstep and proclaimed the house under
siege, announcing her intention to remain until she had wreaked her
vengeance on Mrs. Hogan, and offering meanwhile to fight any four women
of Waddy for mere diversion.

It was not till the tired miners off the night shift had secured all the
goats she pointed out as hers, tied their legs and packed them on her
waggon, that the woman could be induced to leave; and as she drove away
she heaped further insult on the township, and from the distant toll-bar
signalled a final gesture of contempt and loathing.

This woman took back to Cow Flat her own explanation of the mystery of
the lost goats, and in due time deputations from the rival township began
to reach Waddy, so that the Great Goat Riot developed rapidly. It was
long since friendly feeling had existed between Waddy and Cow Flat. There
was a standing quarrel about sludge and the pollution of the wat