Lady Bridget leaned forward with interest.
'Oh! Then he HAS gone after the black-gin. Brave Wombo!'
'I wouldn't care a cuss whether he went after the black-gin or not; she's a half-caste, by the way, and all the worse for that. And he might stop with her, if it wasn't that he knows the country, and can spot the gullies where the cattle hide. I've no use for sentiment—especially black sentiment—when it's a case of a forced sale to keep me going. My heavens! there's only one thing, Biddy, that could break me, and it's drought. I believe we're in for a long one, and unless I can make sales quickly and get money to sink new bores on the run, things will go hardly with me. Harry the Blower spoke naked truth for once in his life.'
'Oh! but there's sure to be rain soon. It looked so like it last night,' she answered lightly.
'LOOKED so like it! Yes, and ended in wind and dust. Sure sign of drought! I must be off.... Here, give me the LEICHARDT LAND CHRONICLE, and don't expect me till you see me.... And by the way, Biddy, I hear there's a Unionist Organiser going the round of the stations and pretending to parley with the masters. Don't you be philanthropic enough to let him open his jaws—I've told Ninnis he's to be hounded off before he has time to get off his saddle.'
'Colin, you are unjust all round. You were very unjust to Wombo. Why shouldn't the poor black-boy marry as well as you or anyone else?'
McKeith gave a hard laugh.
'I'm not preventing him from marrying. I only said I wasn't going to have his gin on my station.'
'You wouldn't listen when he told you that he didn't dare go back to his tribe—because his gin's husband threatened to kill him.'
'My sympathies are with the gin's husband. What business has Wombo to steal another man's wife?'