make into the old home.
This was what made them gammon to be surveyors when they first came,
as we heard about, and go measuring and tape-lining about, when there
wasn't a child over eight years old on the whole creek that couldn't
have told with half an eye they wasn't nothing of the sort.

Well, as bad luck would have it, just as father was getting down towards
the place he meets Moran and Daly, who were making over to the Fish
River on a cattle-duffing lay of their own. They were pretty hard up;
and Moran after his rough and tumble with Jim, in which he had come off
second best, was ready for anything--anything that was bad, that is.

After he'd a long yarn with them about cattle and horses and what not,
he offered them a ten-pound note each if they'd do what he told them.
Dad always carried money about with him; he said it came in handy. If
the police didn't take him, they wouldn't get it; and if they did take
him, why, nothing would matter much and it might go with the rest. It
came in handy enough this time, anyhow, though it helped what had been
far better left undone.

I remember what a blinded rage father got into when he first had
Aileen's letter, and heard that these men were camped close to the old
house, poking about there all day long, and worrying and frightening
poor Aileen and mother.

Well, it seems on this particular day they'd been into the little
township, and I suppose got an extra glass of grog. Anyhow, when they
came back they began to be more venturesome than they generally were.
One chap came into the house and began talking to Aileen, and after a
bit mother goes into her bedroom, and Aileen comes out into the verandah
and begins to wash some clothes in a tub, splashing the water pretty
well about and making it a bit uncomfortable for any one to come near
her.

What must this fool do but begin to talk about what white arms she'd
got--not that they were like that much, she'd done too much hard work
lately to have her arms, or hands either, look very grand; and at last
he began to be saucy, telling her as no Marston girl ought to think so
much of herself, considerin' who and what she was. Well, the end of it
was father heard a scream, and he looked out from where he was hidden
and saw Aileen running down the garden and the fellow after her. He
jumps out, and fires his revolver slapbang at the chap; it didn't hit
him, but it went that close that he stopped dead and turned round to see
who it