"What does it matter, after all, Ned?" said Nellie, gently. "The Cause itself gains by everything that makes men think. There'll never be peace until the squatter goes altogether and the banks and the whole system. And the squatter can't help it. I abuse him myself but I know he only does what most of our own class in his place would do."
"Of course he can't help it, Nellie," agreed Ned. "They're mostly mortgaged up to the neck like the shopkeepers and squeeze us partly to keep afloat themselves. It's the system, not the squatters personally. A lot of them are decent enough, taking them off their runs and some are decent even on their runs. Even the squatters aren't all bad. I don't wish them any harm individually but just the same we're fighting them and they're fighting us and what I feel sorest about is that it's just because the New Unionism is teaching our chaps to think and to be better and to have ideas that they are trying so hard to down it."
"They don't know any better," repeated Nellie.
"That's what Geisner says, I recollect. I mind how he said they'd try sending us to prison here in Australia. They're beginning soon."
They were right at the point now.
"There's only one thing I'd like to know first, Nellie."
"What is it, Ned?" she asked, unconsciously, absorbed in her fear for him.
CHAPTER III.
A WOMAN'S WHIM.
"Nellie!"