The men pulled out their pipes in the veranda.

Lady Bridget, just within the sitting room window, smoked a cigarette, her small form extended in a squatter's chair, listening to, but taking scarcely any part in the conversation.

The two outside discussed local topics--McKeith's failure to trace the perpetrators of the outrage on his horses.

Maule's impressions of Tunumburra--where he had met McKeith in the township hotel, and the two had apparently, in the usual Bush fashion, got on intimate terms--the rumours of an armed camp of Unionists, and the expected conflict between them and the sheep owners and free shearers at Breeza Downs, whither the Government specials were bound.

Lady Bridget gleaned that Maule had placed himself under McKeith's directions.
'What are your immediate movements to be ?' he asked his host.
'Remember, I am ready to fall in with any plans you may have for making me useful.' McKeith did not answer at once.