Lucy, they pushed onwards, the old man
beguiling the time with disquisitions on the horse-hunting capabilities
of his gins, whom he seemed really sorry to leave. As they got near
Pike's, he became more restless than ever.

"See here, Mister," he said at last, "my wife's here, I expect, and if
she gets wind of this, I'll never get rid of her. The only thing to do
is to slip away without her knowing, and she might never hear of it. I
won't go into the place at all. I'll go on and camp down the creek, and
get the coach there after it leaves the town, and she'll never know."

The town of "Pike's" consisted of a hotel, a store, a post-office, a
private residence, and coach-stables; these were all combined in one
establishment, so the town couldn't be said to be scattered. Pike
himself was landlord of the "pub," keeper of the store, officer in
charge of the post-office, owner of the private residence, holder of the
mail contract, and proprietor of the coach-stables. Behind him was only
wilderness and "new" country.

Nobody ever saw him at home. Either he was on the road with a
bullock-team, bringing up supplies for the hotel and store, or he was
droving cattle down on a six months' journey to market; or he was
away looking at new country, or taking supplies out to men on the
half-provisioned stations of the "outer-back;" or else he was off to
some new mining camp or opal-field, to sell a dray-load of goods at
famine prices.

When Charlie and Carew rode up to the store they did not see Pike,
nor did they expect to see him. By some mysterious Providence they
had arrived the very day the coach started on its monthly trip down to
Barcoo; and in front of the hotel were congregated quite a number of
people--Pike's wife and his half-wild children, a handful of bushmen,
station hands, opal miners, and what-not, and last, but not least, a fat
lady of about forty summers, with flaring red hair.

She was a fine "lump" of a woman, with broad shoulders, and nearly the
same breadth all the way down to her feet. She wore a rusty black dress,
which fitted perilously tight to her arms and bust; on her head was
a lopsided, dismantled black bonnet with a feather--a bonnet that had
evidently been put away in a drawer and forgotten for years. Any want of
colour or style in her dress was amply made up for by the fact that she
positively glowed with opals. Her huge, thick fingers twinkled with opal
rings; from each of her ears there dangled a