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Left a penniless boy after having worked his way to independent manhood he had made it his purpose to pursue the wild black with relentless animosity. All along the Upper Leura to the fastnesses at the river's head where his new station stood on the boundaries of civilisation he had gone, mercilessly punishing native depredations.
After that Colin pointedly abstained from allusion to the Ideal Wife and to Joan Gildea's Typewriting-Correspondent, as he had called her. He was very busy himself at this time in connection with a threatened labour strike that was agitating sheep and cattle owners of the Leura District.
But they say it isn't strong enough, and all the able-bodied men on the Leura are enrolling as specials. No doubt, that's what been keeping the Boss. You may be sure if there's fighting to be done black or white he'll be in it. Lady Bridget angered Ninnis by her apparent indifference, and he bade her a cross good-night. Had it been anybody else she would have encouraged him to stay and talk.
As for the true story of that night's adventures, out of which your Police Inspector seems to have made such abominable capital I used to think Police Inspectors were generally gentlemen but they don't seem to be, out on the Leura I've got all the details from Biddy. A tragi-comic business so truly of the Bush, Bushy! I could laugh over it, if it weren't for its serious consequences.
'I bought 'im out of the yard at Breeza Downs that's Windeatt's run about sixty miles from Moongarr, and I will say that though it's a sheep-run they've beat us in the breed of their 'osses.... Got 'im cheap because he'd bucked young Windeatt off and nearly kicked his brains out, and there wasn't a man along the Leura that he'd let stop on his back except me and Zack Duppo the horse-breaker who first put the tackling on 'im.
'Well, I told Sir Luke that I didn't think he need bother himself just yet awhile over that northern tour of inspection he's talking about. 'He wants to make a kind of royal progress, Joan, through the Back-Blocks, said Lady Biddy. 'It'll mean a bit of stiff riding, said McKeith, 'but I've offered to show him round the Upper Leura anyway, and to find him a quiet hack.
Ninnis will be in with us all right, and it would be a fine thing if you came up together. He's a first-rate man, and has had a lot of experience in the Californian goldfields. Poor luck, however, or he wouldn't have come over to free-select on the Leura. It took me a good three weeks to get as far as the Pelican Creek, and I couldn't have done it in the time if there had been Blacks about.
I don't think Mr McKeith would bring Harris to Moongarr he knows I can't bear him. 'Well, I reckon that's up to you to square with the Boss, repeated Ninnis surlily. 'I'm told Harris is on the look-out for desperate characters going along the Leura these unionist organisers dropping in at stations on pretence of getting rations and spying out the land, and calling on the men to join them.
You'll be tired my dear and you must be feeling strange, he added kindly. 'I'll go and have your traps brought up and leave you to fix yourself. I want to see one or two chaps and find out whether my drays are down as far as Fig Tree for stores and what's going on up along the Leura. Bridget noticed that the change in McKeith seemed yet more accentuated.
'This is temperate zone for me after the Leura.... But it's a hot March because we haven't had a proper rainy season, and I'll just stand here and catch the breeze for a minute or two before I sit down. He balanced himself on the veranda railing: took off his broad-brimmed Panama hat and mopped his forehead with a silk handkerchief. Mrs Gildea surveyed him with interested admiration.
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