d out of the
bush and over the fence and charged Waddy at a trot.

'Toe the scratch, men!' yelled Peterson; and the defenders of Waddy
climbed out of the holes and presently turned a solid front to the enemy.
The Cow Flat commander, who had expected to take the place by surprise,
wavered at the sight of organised opposition and called a halt at the
other edge of the quarries; and invaders and besieged faced each other
across the broken ground while the Cow Flat leaders held a council of
war. On the level behind the entrenched army the women of Waddy and their
families were picknicking gaily on the grass, for it was accepted as a
great gala day in the township, and flags of all shapes and colours,
devised from all kinds of discarded garments, fluttered from tree-tops,
chimneys, posts, clothes-props, and any other eminence to which a
streamer could be fastened.

Perceiving their opponents reluctant to charge, Peterson's command
presently developed a fine flow of sarcasm.

'Won't ye stip over, ye mud-gropers?' cried Devoy. 'It's a nice little
riciption we've arranged for yez.

'Who stole the goats?' retorted the enemy.

'Sure, is it the bits of goats, then? Ye might come an' take them if ye
won't be stayin' all day there dishcussin' polemics.' Devoy was
understood to be a man of learning and unequalled in argument.

'Kidnappers an' goat-stealers!' yelled the foe.

Devoy posed on a rock in an oratorical attitude.

'Ye came suspectin' t' have a foine aisy time the mornin',' he said. 'Yez
contimplated playin' the divil wid a big shtick among the weemin an' the
childther. Tom Moran, ye thunderin' great ilephant av a man, d'ye think
ye cud fight a sick hen on a fince?'

Moran replied with uproarious profanity and frantic pantomime, and the
abuse became general and vociferous. Devoy mounted a larger rock and
commenced a scathing harangue; but a sod thrown by an invader took him in
the mouth and toppled him over backwards, so that he arose gasping and
spitting and clawing dirt out of his beard, and made a rush for his
enemy, mad for battle; friends grappled with him and held him back, and
he could only shriek defiance and rash challenges as the two parties
moved along the quarries towards the log barricade. Here the men of Cow
Flat halted again and their leaders conferred, but the rank-and-file were
rapidly losing temper and restraint under the black insults heaped upon
them by the besieged. They scattered along the row