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An’ jest then, as luck would have it, we seen Dave Regan ridin’ up from the creek towards the house. He got down an’ went into the kitchen, an’ then come backin’ out agen in a hurry with her in front of him. We could hear her voice from where we was, but we couldn’t hear what she said. But we could see her arms wavin’ as if she was drivin’ fowls, an’ Dave backed all the way to his horse and gets on an’ comes ridin’ away quick, she screamin’ arter him all the time. When he got down opposite the camp we sung out to know what was the matter. “What have you been doin’ to Mrs Hardwick, Dave?” we says. “We heerd her goin’ for yer proper jest now.” “Damned if I know,” says Dave. “I ain’t done nothin’ to her that I knows of. She’s called me everything she can lay her tongue to, an’ she’s ravin’ about my stinkin’ fish, or somethin’. I can’t make it out at all. I believe she’s gone ratty.”

“But you must have been doin’ somethin’ to the woman,” we says, “or else she wouldn’t have gone on at yer like that.”

But Dave swore he hadn’t, an’ we talked it over for a while an’ couldn’t make head nor tail of it, an’ we come to the conclusion that it was only a touch o’ the sun.

“Never mind, Dave,” we says. “Go up agen in a day or two, when she’s cooled down, an’ find out what the matter is. Or write to her. It might only have been someone makin’ mischief. That’s what it is.”

But Dave only sat an’ rubbed his head, an’ presently he started home to wherever he was hangin’ out. He wanted a quiet week to think.

“Her chimbly might have been smokin’, Dave,” we shouted arter him, but he was too dazed like to ketch on.

Well, in a month or two we was campin’ there agen, an’ we found she’d fenced in a lane to the crick she had no right to, an’ we had to take the bullicks a couple o’ miles round to grass an’ water. Well, the first mornin’ we seen her down in the corner of her paddick near the camp drivin’ some heifers, an’ Billy Grimshaw went up to the fence an’ spoke to her. Billy was the only one of us that dared face her and he was the only one she was ever civil to–p’r’aps because Billy had a squint an’ a wall eye and that put her out of countenance.

Billy took off his hat very respectful an’ sings out, “Mrs Hardwick.” (It was Billy’s bullicks she’d “pounded,” by the way.)

“What is it?” she says.

“I want to speak to you, Mrs Hardwick,” says Billy.

“Well, speak,” she says. “I’ve got no time to waste talkin’ to bullick-drivers.”

“Well, the fact is, Mrs Hardwick,” says Billy, “that I want to explain somethin’, an’ apologize for that young scamp of a nephew o’ mine, young Tommy. He ain’t here or I’d make him beg your pardon hisself, or I’d cut him to pieces with the bullick-whip. I heard all about Dave Regan sendin’ you that stinkin’ fish, an’ I think it was a damned mean, dirty thing to do–to send stinkin’ fish to a woman, an’ especially to a widder an’ an unprotected woman like you, Mrs Hardwick. I’ve had mothers an’ sisters of me own. An’ I want to tell you that I’m sorry a relation o’ mine ever had anythin’ to do with it. As soon as I heerd of it I give young Tommy a lambastin’ he won’t forgot in a hurry.”

“Did Tommy know the fish was bad?” she says.

“It doesn’t matter a rap,” says Billy; “he had no right to go takin’ messages from nobody to nobody.”