'He's a bad lot,' was the Swamp Creek opinion.
'And let me tell you, you "bounders,"' said Dr Tom, 'that half of you are not fit to black Jim Dennis's boots.'
'He never has 'em blacked, doc.'
'Then you're not fit to scrape the dirt off 'em, never mind the blacking,' was the retort.
Inside Wanabeen, the name of Jim's place, the little chap lay gasping on a camp bedstead, with the half-caste Sal crooning near him.
Sal was not so black as the aborigine, and had been brought up on a mission station. She was not a bad-looking woman, about four or five-and-twenty.
How came she there?
It happened in this wise. Sal was the offspring of a rich squatter. Her only disgrace was her birth, not to her, but to the man who begot her. She lived with the blacks on the station for several years. She grew up in wild, unrestricted freedom. She was lithe and active as any young black on the run, and her fleetness of foot had more than once stood her in good stead.
Sal had dark brown liquid eyes, a nose somewhat too large for her face, but not unprepossessing, full cheeks, a forehead well set on, small ears, thickish lips, and a mass of dark curly hair that never seemed to be out of order. She had small hands and small feet, and her supple limbs were graceful.
When the 'boss' of the station went to England to spend the money others had made for him, Sal was annexed by the mission people.