k spots off my wife, any of
you,' cried Colin delighted at the sally. And now he walked and talked
like a man on his own soil again, as more of the townsfolk came
about--extraordinary people, Bridget thought. Loose-limbed bush-riders,
really trim, some of them, in clean breeches and with a scarlet
handkerchief doing duty as a belt, unkempt old men, a Unionist Labour
organiser addressing a knot of station-hands out of work--even a
Chinaman--a Chinky, McKeith called him, who, it appeared kept a
nondescript store. That was in the days before the Commonwealth and the
battle cry of 'White Australia.'

All of them showed the deepest interest in the small, pale, picturesque
woman walking by Colin's side.

It seemed incredible to Biddy that she should be walking like that
beside the big Bushman, in this sort of town, and that he should be her
lawful protector.

The street they walked up began from the wharf with two-storied
respectable buildings--the Bank, the Post-Office, the
police-magistrate's residence, some dwelling houses, within palings
enclosing gardens--clumps of bananas, pawpaw apple trees, a few flower
beds, bushes of flaunting red poinsettia, and so forth. There were
stores, public houses, meaner shanties straggling along a dusty road
that lost itself in vistas of lank gum trees.

The Postmaster hoped that Mr McKeith's lady would not find the hotel
too rowdy. It was one of the two-storied buildings, and had a bar
giving onto the street, and a veranda round both upper and lower
storey. A number of Bushmen and loafers were drinking in the bar, and
others were on the edge of the veranda dangling their legs over it into
the street. All of them stopped their talk and their drink to stare at
Lady Bridget. The landlady--a big, florid Irish-woman in black silk,
with a gold chain round her neck came out onto the veranda and greeted
McKeith as an old friend, holding out her hand to Lady Bridget. She
took the husband and wife up to their rooms, a parlour opening on the
balcony, a bedroom over the bar and a little room at the back of it.

'It's a rough sort of shop, Biddy,' said Colin, when the woman had
departed. 'But it will do for a shake-down for to-night. If the steamer
had come in earlier I'd have taken you straight up to Fig Tree Mount,
where the buggy will be waiting for us; and after that we'll begin our
camping out, and you'll be in the real Bush. But we've lost the train,
and must wait till daylight to-morrow.