As soon as it became dark, she and Sue curled themselves up into a little heap near the fire, and fell asleep for the night.
In the morning I gave her a blue and white singlet that I had taken from one of the boys’ “swags”. She dressed herself in it at once, and looked just like a gaily-coloured beetle, with thin black arms and legs, but she thought herself very stylish, and danced about everywhere with Sue at her heels. All nigger dogs are ugly, but Sue was the ugliest of them all. She looked very much like a flattened out plum-pudding on legs, with ears like a young calf, and a cat’s tail!
As we sat at breakfast I asked Bett-Bett if any mosquitoes had bitten her in the night, “No more,” she said, and then added with a grin: “Big mob bin sing out, sing out.” She seemed pleased to think how angry they must have been when they found a mouthful of mud, instead of the juicy nigger they expected.
When we were ready to start for the homestead I asked Bett-Bett if she and Sue would like to come and live with me there. “Dank you please, Missus!” she answered, grinning with delight.
So Bett-Bett found a Missus, and I—well, I found a real nuisance! !
Chapter 2
“Shimy Shirts”
For at least a week after we reached the homestead, Bett-Bett was kept busy protecting Sue from the station dogs. We hadn’t been home an hour before we heard a fearful yell, and running to see what could have happened, found that all the dogs on the place had set on the poor little beast, and were trying to worry her to death.
With a shriek Bett-Bett flew to the rescue. As she ran she picked up a thick stick, and with it fought and hammered and screamed her way into the biting, yelping mob of dogs; then picking up the dusty little speckled ball, she fought and hammered and screamed her way out again to a place of safety. There she sat and crooned over Sue, who licked her face and tried to say—“How good you are, Bett-Bett.”