gesture towards Elsie, who pretended not to see or hear. "Mine think it that fellow Hallett, plenty look after Elsie." "Elsie—I say," shouted the imp. An Australian black is no respecter of persons. "Mine got him dilly-bag for you."
The dilly-bag which had been plaited by the gins smelled atrociously of the camp, but it was a good pretext for escaping Trant's farewell gaze, and for running round to the store for a fig of tobacco, the purchase money agreed upon for the dilly-bag.
Trant rode off. Close by the door Hallett was saddling his horse, and Lord Horace was in conversation with a travelling digger, to whom he had been giving out rations.
"Lord, what infernal cheek!" Lord Horace was saying. "You'll have to look sharp, Hallett, to beat that."
"What is it that you are to look sharp about?" asked Elsie, coming towards him.
"It seems," said Hallett, drawing his lips together, and relaxing them with a determined expression, "that though poor Slaney was only buried yesterday, the Opposition candidate has already declared himself."
"What!" said Elsie.
"Posters up on the gum-trees all round Goondi. This fellow has come from the Bean-tree this morning, and they had telegraphed it on there. I wonder if Trant knew anything about it."
"Why, of course," put in the digger. "Trant is his partner, and Trant was at the Bean-tree yesterday, telegraphing all over the country. Good day, Miss." He touched his felt wideawake as Elsie turned to him impulsively.
"You don't mean that Mr. Trant is the Opposition candidate?" she asked.
"It's his partner, Miss," said the digger. "Blake, of Baròlin. He thinks he'll get in on the Irish vote—a flash sort of chap is Blake, they say. You take my advice, Mr. Hallett. Cut in at once, and take the wind out of his sails. You're safe enough on the Luya, but those Goondi chaps are all agin the squatters, and they like blather."
The man had taken some dirty shillings out of his pouch,
