At afternoon tea there was no milk served.  “There was none,” Sam explained blandly.  “The missus had drunk it all.  Missus bin finissem milk all about,” he said When the lubras were brought back, they said they had “knocked up longa scrub,” and finished the floor under protest.

The Maluka offered assistance; but I thought I ought to manage them myself, and set the lubras to clean and strip some feathers for a pillow—­the Maluka had been busy with a shot-gun—­and suggested to Sam that he might spend some of his spare time shooting birds.

Mac had been right when he said the place was stiff with birds.  A deep fringe of birds was constantly moving in and about and around the billabong; and the perpetual clatter of the plovers and waders formed an undercurrent to the life at the homestead.

The lubras worked steadily for a quarter of an hour at the feathers; then a dog-fight demanding all their attention, the feathers were left to the mercy of the winds, and were never gathered together.  At sundown Sam fired into a colony of martins that Mac considered the luck of the homestead.  Right into their midst he fired, as they slept in long, graceful garlands one beside the other along the branches of a gum-tree, each with its head snugly tucked away out of sight.

“Missus want feather!” Sam said, with his unfathomable smile, when Mac flared out at him, and again the missus appeared the culprit.

The Maluka advised making the orders a little clearer, and Sam was told to use more discretion in his obedience, and, smiling and apologetic, promised to obey.

The lubras also promised to be more painstaking, reserving only the right to rest if they should “knock up longa work.”

The Maluka, Mac and the Dandy, looked on in amusement while the missus wrestled with the servant question; and even the Quiet Stockman grinned sympathetically at times, unconsciously becoming interested in a woman who was too occupied to ask questions.

For five days I “wrestled”; and the only comfort I had was in Bertie’s Nellie, a gentle-faced old lubra almost sweet-faced.  She undoubtedly did her best, and, showing signs of friendship, was invaluable in “rounding up” the other lubras when they showed signs of “knocking up.”

On the morning of the sixth day Sam surpassed himself in obedience.  I had hinted that breakfast should be a little earlier, adding timidly that he might use a little more ingenuity in the breakfast menu, and at the first grey streak of dawn breakfast was announced, and, dressing hurriedly, we sat down to what Sam called “Pump-pie-King pie with raisins and mince.”  The expression on Sam’s face was celestial.  No other word could describe it.  There was also an underlying expression of triumph which made me suspicious of his apparent ingenuousness, and as the lubras had done little else but make faces at themselves in the looking-glass for two days (I was beginning to hate that looking-glass), I appealed to the Maluka for assistance.