ptly, jerking his long legs, and went to the further end
of the veranda, where he stood with set features and brows like a red
bar, below which staring eyes were fixed vacantly upon the avenue of
bunya trees in the long walk of the Botanical Gardens across the river.
But they did not see those bunya trees. What they saw was a row of
mutilated bodies, lying stark along the veranda of that head-station on
the Leura.

Bridget was leaning forward in her squatter's chair, her fingers
grasping the arms of it, her face very white and her eyes staring too,
as though they also beheld the scene of horror.

Presently McKeith came back, pale too, but quite composed.

'I beg your pardon,' he said stiffly. 'Perhaps I should not have told
you.'

'It's--horrible. But I'm glad to know. Thank you for telling me.'

He looked at her wistfully. There was silence for a moment or two.

'And you ... you ... where were you?' she stammered.

'Me! I was with the drays, you know. We got back about noon that
day.... If we'd been twelve hours sooner! Well, I suppose I should have
been murdered with the rest.... The blacks had gone off with their
loot.... We ... we buried our dead.... And then we ran up our best
horses and never drew rein for forty miles till we'd got to where a
band of the Native Police were camped.... And then ... we took what
vengeance we could.... It wasn't complete till a long time afterwards.'

He was standing behind Bridget's chair, his eyes still gazing beyond
the river. He did not notice that she leaned back suddenly, and her
hands fell nervelessly to her lap. He felt a touch on his arm. It was
Mrs Gildea, who had come out to the veranda again. 'Colin,' she said,
'I want you to go and bring me my typewriter from the parlour. And then
you've got to dictate "copy," about the Alexandra City Gas-Bore. Please
go at once.'

He obeyed. Mrs Gildea bent over Lady Bridget.

'Biddy! ... You're not faint, are you?'

Lady Bridget roused herself and looked up at her friend rather
wildly.... 'No.... What do you take me for? ... I said I wanted real
things, Joan ... And I've got them.'

She laughed a little hysterically.

'All right! But we shall give you a taste of real Australia that isn't
quite so gruesome. That some of the tragedy belongs to the pioneer
days.... I could tell you things myself that my father has told me. ...
But I won't.... Mind, Colin McKeith is no more of a hero than a dozen
bush boys I knew when I firs