Ninnis' jaw stiffened underneath his shaggy goatee.
'Well, I guess you know your own business, Mrs McKeith, and it's up to you to square things with the Boss.'
Lady Bridget reared her small form and bent her head with great stateliness.
'But I'll just say, though,' went on Ninnis, 'that I hear Harris of the police is coming along. And what Harris doesn't think he knows about the heel of the law being kept on Blacks—and every other darned unit in the creation scheme'—muttered Ninnis in parenthesis—'ain't entered in the Almighty's Log-book.'
Ninnis expectorated over the veranda railings—a habit of his that jarred on Lady Bridget.
'Well, what about Harris?'
'He's had his eye on Wombo and would be glad of an opportunity to best him—on account of a little affair about a colt Wombo rode for him at the last Tunumburra races—and lost the stakes—out of spite, Harris declares.'
'Oh, I know about that—and I told Mr Harris what I thought about his treatment of the Blacks. But he can't punish Wombo if I choose to have him here. I don't think Mr McKeith would bring Harris to Moongarr—he knows I can't bear him.'
'Well, I reckon that's up to you to square with the Boss,' repeated Ninnis surlily. 'I'm told Harris is on the look-out for desperate characters going along the Leura—these unionist organisers—dropping in at stations on pretence of getting rations and spying out the land, and calling on the men to join them. There was a boundary rider from Breeza Downs to-day—caught us up with the tailing mob and fetched back their new chum and Zack Duppo, leaving us awful short-handed—so that if Joe Casey doesn't fetch in the milkers so early to-morrow you'll know it's because I've had to send him out herding. They're doing their shearing early at Breeza Downs with shearers Windeatt has imported from the south, and he wants police protection for them and himself.'
Lady Bridget laughed.