"Why not? They'll do anything, Nellie. They're frantic and think they must or the movement will flood them out. They'd like nothing better than a chance to shoot a mob of us down like wild turkeys. They have squatter magistrates and squatter judges--you know we've got some daisies up in Queensland--and they'll snap up all the best lawyers and pack the jury with a lot of shopkeepers who're just in a panic at the newspaper yarns. The worst interpretation'll be put on everything and every foolish word be magnified a thousand times. I know the gentry too well. They'll have us sure as fate and all I hope is that the boys won't be foolish enough to give them an excuse to massacre a few hundred. It'll be two or three years apiece, the Trades Hall people have heard. However, I suppose we can stand it. I don't care so long as the chaps stick to the union." "Do you think they will?" asked Nellie, after another pause. "I'm sure they will. They can rake a hundred of us in for life and knock the union endways and in a year there'll be as much fight in the boys as there is now, and more bitter, too. Why they're raising money in Sydney for us already and I'm told that it was squeezed as dry as a bone over the maritime strike. The New South Wales fellows are all true blue and so they are down Adelaide way, as good as gold yet. The bosses don't know what a job they tackled when they started in to down unionism. They fancy that if they can only smash our fellows they'll have unionism smashed all over Australia. The fun will only just have started then." "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.