The place was well awake when the sun looked over the edge of the plain; a clatter going forward in the kitchen, the parrots whistling in their cage by the window, the gins yabbering at the doorway of their hut, the voices of men raised down at the yards. There Power gave O'Neill the orders for the day, and Scandalous Jack moved everywhere, full of importance and loud talk. The horses stood in the yard, and a man or two went about the morning feed.
Kaloona stands upon the river in a noble stretch of timbered country. The timber shelters the homestead on three sides, and falls back to the brink of the water. At high noon on a summer day you will find cool places under the trees where a man may lie in fair content. There is always a bird or two flitting among the boughs, with a bright call in his bill.
Very fair grows Kaloona by moonshine or by starshine on summer nights; the water sleeping, the night loud with insect voices, the sound of splashes in the shadows.
Summer finds it a fair spot; but winter brings it loveliness with both hands. The breath of the frost comes down at night, and sends a man abroad at dawn blowing his fingers, and throwing an eye to the East for the lie-a-bed sun. It comes at last, big and red, tumbling over the country in long jolly beams. Now in tree and bush begin the birds, calling, whistling, crying, mocking. The pelican is pouting his breast in the river, and the spoonbill shovels in the mud.
After breakfast comes the saddling up, and many a clever rider can lose his seat when the frost is in the air and the young horses leave the yards.
Spring is nigh as lovely. The parrot flashes his colours in the sun, the bright-breasted finches swing in the bushes. The slim black cockatoo sweeps overhead, and the sulphur-crest screams in the high branches. A fair spot is Kaloona by the river.
Life has ups and downs there. Much work there is to do sometimes—hard days in the saddle, with short rations now and then, and a bed at the end under the sky. Slack times come in their turn, when the hours arrive empty-handed—and those first long summer days, when the musterers had come back from Morning Springs, supplied little employment after the bustle round in the morning. It was the season for a man to look about and put himself in repair; mend his whip, teach his dog manners, patch his boots and the like. When the sun was in the middle of the sky, and the iron roofs of the homestead and the huts cracked out loud in the heat, a man could lie on his back and smoke a pipe, and so find content until evening.
It was never Power's way to hang about the homestead, unless work kept him there; but some evil spell had fallen on him these latter times, causing him to prowl at home at idle end. He grew crotchety these days, hard to please and poorly pleased even when things were well. There were mornings when he saddled a horse and rode over to Surprise, returning as gloomy as he went, and again, as evening came on, he rode away, leaving those behind him to guess his errand.
"Mrs. Elliott," said Maggie one breakfast, putting her hands to her hips and talking very straight, "the boss has turned cranky of a sudden. There's no getting yes or no out of him. It's no good to me. I'll be letting fly."