“What makes you so sure the men will stick, Ned?” enquired Nellie.

“Because they all know what the squatter was before the union and what he’ll be the minute he gets another chance.  The squatters will keep the unions going right enough.  Besides everybody’s on for a vote now in the bush and, of course, the Government is going to keep it from them as long as possible.  Without unionism they’ll never get votes and they know it.”

They had reached the path by Wooloomooloo Bay.  Ned took off his hat and walked bareheaded.  “This is lovely!” he remarked, refreshed.

“What a fool Griffith is!” cried Nellie, suddenly.

“He’s not as cunning as he ought to be,” assented Ned.  “But why?”

“Do you know what I’d do if I were him?” answered Nellie.  “I’d send all the military and all the police home and go up into the bush by myself and have a chat with the committee and the men at the camps and find out just how they looked at the thing and ask them to assist in keeping order and I’d see that they got justice if Parliament had to be called together specially to do it.”

“He’s not smart enough to do that,” answered Ned.  “Besides, the squatters and the capitalistic set are the Parliament and wouldn’t let him.  I suppose he believes every lie they stuff him with and never gives a minute’s thought to our having a side.”

“He didn’t use to be a bad man, once,” persisted Nellie.

“I suppose he’s not a bad man now,” cried Ned, boiling over.  “He’s not on the make like most of them and he fancies he’s very patriotic, I imagine, but what does he know of us or of the squatter?  He sees us at our worst and the squatter at his best and we’ve got different ways of talking and when we get drunk on poisoned rum that the Government lets be sold we aren’t as gentlemanly as those who get drunk on Hennessy and champagne.  We don’t curse in the same gentlemanly way and we splash out what we think and don’t wear two faces like his set.  And so he thinks we’re ruffians and outlaws and he can’t feel why the bushmen care for the unions.  The squatter has taken up all the land and the squatter law has tied up what hasn’t been taken and most of us are a lot of outcasts, without homes or wives or children or anything that a man should have barring our horses.  We’ve got no votes and every law is set against us and we’ve no rights and the squatter’d like to throw us all out to make room for Chinese.  There’s nothing in front of the bushman now unless the union gets it for him and they’re trying to break up our union, Griffith and his push, and, by God, they shan’t do it.  They haven’t gaols enough to hold every good unionist, not if they hang a thousand of us to start with.”

“What does it matter, after all, Ned?” said Nellie, gently.  “The Cause itself gains by everything that makes men think.  There’ll never be peace until the squatter goes altogether and the banks and the whole system.  And the squatter can’t help it.  I abuse him myself but I know he only does what most of our own class in his place would do.”