Mac, always chivalrous, said he would manage somehow without Bertie,
rather than "upset things"; but the Maluka would not agree, and finally
Nellie consented to go, on condition that she would be left at the
homestead when the waggons went through.
Then Mac came and confessed a long-kept secret. Roper belonged to the
station, and he had no claim on him beyond fellowship. "I've ridden him
ever since I came here, that's all," he said, his arm thrown across the
old horse. "I'd have stuck to him somehow, fair means or foul, if I
hadn't seen you know how to treat a good horse."
The Maluka instantly offered fair means, but Mac shook his head. "Let the
missus have him," he said, "and they'll both have a good time. But I'm
first offer when it comes to selling." So the grand old horse was passed
over to me to be numbered among the staunchest and truest of friends.
"Oh, well," Mac said in good-bye. "All's well that end's well," and he
pointed to Nellie, safely stowed away in a grove of dogs that half filled
the back of the buck-board.
But all had not ended for us. So many lubras put themselves on the
homestead staff to fill the place left vacant by Nellie, that the one
room was filled to overflowing while the work was being done, and the
Maluka was obliged to come to the rescue once more. He reduced the house
staff to two, allowing a shadow or two extra in the persons of a few old
black fellows and a piccaninny or two, sending the rejected to camp.
In the morning there was a free fight in camp between the staff and some
of the camp lubras, the rejected, led by Jimmy's lubra - another
Nellie - declaring the Maluka had meant two different lubras each day.
Again there was much ear-splitting argument, but finally a compromise was
agreed on. Two lubras were to sit down permanently, while as many as
wished might help with the washing and watering. Then the staff and the
shadows settled down on the verandah beside me to watch while I evolved
dresses for two lubras out of next to nothing in the way of material, and
as I sewed, the Maluka, with some travellers who were "in" to help him,
set to work to evolve a garden also out of next to nothing in the way of
material.
