"I'm sure we're
all real glad to see you." Just the tiniest emphasis on the word "you";
but that, and the quick, bright look that accompanied the emphasis, told,
as nothing else could, that it was "that other woman" that had not been
wanted. Unconventional, of course; but when a welcome is conventional
out-bush, it is unworthy of the name of welcome.
The Maluka, knew this well, but before he could speak, Mac had seized a
little half-grown dog - the most persistent of all the leaping dogs - by
her tightly curled-up tail, and, setting her down at my feet, said: "And
this is Tiddle'ums," adding, with another flourishing bow, "A present
from a Brither Scot," while Tiddle'ums in no way resented the dignity.
Having a tail that curled tightly over her back like a cup handle, she
expected to be lifted up by it.
Then one after the other Mac presented the station dogs: Quart-Pot,
Drover, Tuppence, Misery, Buller, and a dozen others; and as I bowed
gravely to each in turn Dan chuckled in appreciation: "She'll do! Told
you she was the dead finish."
Then the introductions over, the Maluka said: "Ann, now I suppose she may
consider herself just 'One of Us.'"
CHAPTER VI
The homestead, standing half-way up the slope that rose from the
billabong, had, after all, little of that "down-at-heels, anything'll-do"
appearance that Mac had so scathingly described.
