chamber. How
wonderful the stars were!... There was the Southern Cross with its
pointers, and the Pleiades. And that bright star above the tops of the
trees, which seemed to throw a distinct ray of light, must be Venus....
The moon was high enough to cast shadows--black--distorted. The low
clumps of shrubs beyond the carpet of grass looked like strange couched
beasts....

As she stood by the rocks at the creek edge, she heard her husband
speaking to Moongarr Bill, who seemed to be walking down along the
sandy bed.

'Horses all right, Bill?'

'Oh, ay--just a possum up a tree gev Julius Caesar a start.... Been
digging a decent bath-hole for the ladyship in the morning, boss.
There's plenty there.'

'I wish it was as near the surface at Moongarr, Bill. We shall have our
work cut out making new bores, if the dry weather lasts.'

'My word, it's no joke going down three thousand feet. Amazing queer
the amount of water running underground on this dried-up old earth.'

'But we can always strike it, Bill; no matter how dried up the outside
looks, there's the living spring waiting to be tapped. And how's that
in human nature too, Bill. Same idea, eh?'

Moongarr Bill emitted a harsh grunt.

'My best girl chucked me a month back, boss, and as for your darned
sentiment and poetry, and sech-like--well, I ain't takin' any just at
present.'

'Bad luck, Bill! Struck a dead-head that time, eh?... Well, good-night.'

'Good-night, boss--and good luck to you. I reckon your spring ain't a
dead-head, anyway.... Say, Mr McKeith, me and the boys are shifting our
fire over to the other side of the creek.... Keep the 'osses from
hevin' any more of their blessed starts.... Handier for gettin' them up
in the morning.'

[*Yarraman--Horse.]

CHAPTER 8

Lady Bridget McKeith had been married about a year and a quarter.
Winter was now merging into spring. But it was not a bounteous spring.
That drear spectre of drought hung over the Never-Never Land.

Lady Bridget stood by the railing of the veranda at Moongarr, looking
out for two expected arrivals at the head-station--that of her husband,
who had been camping out after cattle--and of the mailman--colloquially,
Harry the Blower--who this week was to bring an English mail.

Perhaps the last arrival seemed to her at the moment most important of
the two. The bush wife had long since begun to feel a sort of home
sickness for English news. Yet, had you asked her, she would have t