een slept in, but there were signs that
McKeith had got into his riding clothes and that he had packed a valise.

Maule was waiting in the dining-room, and Maggie, the serving maid,
gave a message from McKeith that he had had his breakfast at the
Bachelors' Quarters with Mr Harris and that they were both going to
start for Breeza Downs immediately.

Bridget made no pretence of breakfasting. She told Maule to forage for
himself, and, after swallowing a cup of coffee, made the excuse of
household business--to see if the Chinaman had put up his master's
lunch--if the water-bags were filled--what were to be the proceedings
of the day. She had a hope that McKeith might say something
conciliatory to her before he left. The remembrance of that disregarded
appeal--the word 'Mate' to which she had given no response, weighed, a
guilty load, upon her heart.

But she was sore and angry--in no mood to make any advance or stoop to
self-justification. He was outside the store, where Ninnis was weighing
rations for Harris, and McKeith's and the Police Inspector's horses,
ready saddled, with valises strapped on, were hitched to the paling.

Harris sulkily touched his helmet to Lady Bridget, but McKeith had his
back to her and seemed wholly absorbed in some directions he was giving.

'You'll see to it, Ninnis, that six saddle-horses are kept ready to run
up, in case the Pastoralist Executive sends along any message that's
got to be carried down the river--there's that lot of colts Zack Duppo
broke in, they'll do. And you can get in Alexander and Roxalana from
the Bore pasture, in case the buggy should be wanted--and one or two of
the old hacks that are spelling out there. Of course, her ladyship's
horse mustn't be touched, and you'll see Mr Maule has a proper mount if
he wants it--the gentleman who'll be here for a bit--a friend of her
ladyship's from England--you understand. You'll keep on those new men
for the tailing mob, though I'm not sure they mightn't be Unionists in
disguise. Anyway, Moongarr Bill is a match for them.... And you'll just
mind--the lot of you--that it's my orders to stockwhip blacks off the
place, and that if any Unionist delegates show their faces through the
sliprails they're not allowed to stop five minutes inside the paddock
fence.'

'Right you are, Boss,' responded Ninnis, and there was a change of
grouping, and McKeith strode out to the yard to look into some other
matter, all without sending a glance t