cousin Chris Gaverick ever does come into it, he'd rather spend his
money in doing something else. . . . But never mind that. . . . I want
to hear about the black gin and the half-caste girls, and if your
mother saved them from the cannibals . . . and why the blacks wanted to
eat their own kind. Dog doesn't eat dog--at least, so they tell one.'

'It's this way. Our blacks weren't regular cannibals, but in the bunya
season they'd all collect in the scrubs and feed on the nuts and
nothing else for months. Then after a bit they'd get meat-hungry, and
there not being many wild animals in Australia and only a few cattle in
those outlying districts, they'd satisfy their cravings by killing and
eating some of themselves--lubras--young girls--by preference, and,
naturally, half-castes, as having no particular tribal status, for
choice.'

'Half-castes!' She repeated, a little puzzled.

'These ones had Chinky blood in them--daughters of a Chinaman
fossicker. . . . We're not partial to the Chinese in Australia--only
we don't eat them, we expel them--methods just a bit dissimilar, but
the principle the same, you see. . . . Anyway, of course we took on the
gin and her girls, and for about a year didn't have any particular
trouble at the station with the blacks--though there was a shepherd
speared in one of the out-huts. . . . That was his fault, however, poor
devil--the old story--but it don't matter. The trouble came to a head
with a black boy, called Leura-Jimmy, that Jerry the bullock-driver
brought up with him and left at the station where he went down to the
township for store supplies--He took me with him--I told you I was
learning bullock-driving. . . .'