In the same instant he saw the livid bruise, half hidden under her hair--and then he saw a big bundle behind her, partly screened by a dwarfed banksian.

After that his eyes went back to the bruise.
"Jed Hawkins didn't do it," said Nada, knowing what was in his mind.

"It was Jed's woman.

And you can't kill her!" she added a little defiantly.
Jolly Roger caught the choking throb in her throat, and he knew she was lying.

But Nada thrust Peter from her lap, and stood up, and she seemed taller and more like a woman than ever before in her life as she faced Jolly Roger there in the tiny open, with violets and buttercups and red strawberries in the soft grass under their feet.