All Waddy turned out to hear, and many followed the woman up the road.  The school children heard the noisy procession go by with amazement and regret, and the visitor grew shriller and fiercer as her search progressed.  At length she discovered what she declared to be one of her goats in the possession of Mrs. Hogan, and she left her waggon and charged the latter, who fled in terror, bolting all her doors and throwing up a barricade in the passage.  But the stranger was not to be foiled:  she sat down on the doorstep and proclaimed the house under siege, announcing her intention to remain until she had wreaked her vengeance on Mrs. Hogan, and offering meanwhile to fight any four women of Waddy for mere diversion.

It was not till the tired miners off the night shift had secured all the goats she pointed out as hers, tied their legs and packed them on her waggon, that the woman could be induced to leave; and as she drove away she heaped further insult on the township, and from the distant toll-bar signalled a final gesture of contempt and loathing.

This woman took back to Cow Flat her own explanation of the mystery of the lost goats, and in due time deputations from the rival township began to reach Waddy, so that the Great Goat Riot developed rapidly.  It was long since friendly feeling had existed between Waddy and Cow Flat.  There was a standing quarrel about sludge and the pollution of the waters of the creek; there were political differences, too, and a fierce sporting rivalry.  By the majority of the people of Cow Flat the purloining of their goats was accepted as further evidence of the moral depravity and low origin of the people of Waddy, and the feeling between the townships was suddenly strained to a dangerous tension.

The first few skirmishing parties from Cow Flat were composed of women and boys, and an undisciplined and rash pursuit of goats followed each visit.  The nannies and billies, under stress of the new excitement, ran suddenly wild and developed a fleetness of foot, an expertness in climbing, and powers of endurance hitherto all unsuspected by their owners; so very few animals were recovered by the visitors.

The hunt was continued throughout the next day.  Goats were rushing wildly about the place from morning till midnight pursued by their wrathful owners, to the detriment of the peace of Waddy and the undoing of the tractable local milkers; and at last a great resentment took possession of the matrons of the township—­there were counter-attacks among the houses, rescue parties beset the women carrying off prizes, and a few skirmishes happened on the flat.  Now the men were induced to take a hand, and there was talk of battle and pillage and sudden death.

Devoy, pugnacious and vengeful, provoked the first serious struggle.  Discovering a man of Cow Flat who claimed a small family of aggressive brown goats which he had marked out as the vandals that had wrought ruin amongst his well-kept beds, Devoy bearded the stranger and spoke of damages and broken heads, and his small son, Danny, a young Australian with a piquant brogue and a born love of ructions, moved round and incited him to bloodshed.