"What business had he to listen? What's all this fine administration they
talk of? It's six years since I came to this country, and I've worked like
a nigger ever since I came, and what have I, or any men who've worked hard
at real, honest farming, got for it? Everything in the land is given away
for the benefit of a few big folks over the water or swells out here. If
England took over the Chartered Company tomorrow, what would she find?--
everything of value in the land given over to private concessionaires--
they'll line their pockets if the whole land goes to pot! It'll be the
jackals eating all the flesh off the horse's bones, and calling the lion in
to lick the bones."

"Oh, you wait a bit and you'll be squared," said the handsome man. "I've
been here five years and had lots of promises, though I haven't got
anything else yet; but I expect it to come some day, so I keep my mouth
shut! If they asked me to sign a paper, that Mr. Over-the-Way"--he nodded
towards the bell tent--"never got drunk or didn't know how to swear, I'd
sign it, if there was a good dose of squaring to come after it. I could
stand a good lot of that sort of thing--squaring--if it would only come my
way."

The men laughed in a dreary sort of way, and the third man, who had not
spoken yet, rolled round on to his back, and took the pipe from his mouth.

"I tell you what," said the keen man, "those of us up here who have got a
bit of land and are trying honestly and fairly to work, are getting pretty
sick of this humbugging fighting. If we'd had a few men like the Curries
and Bowkers of the old days up here from the first, all this would never
have happened. And there's no knowing when a reason won't turn up for
keeping the bloody thing on or stopping it off for a time, to break out
just when one's settled down to work. It's a damned convenient thing to