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"There are policemen here, are there?"

"Yes, sir, a good force of mounted police, a smart body of men. And they're needed. Western Australia is full of old prisoners, black fellers, and white ones too. The whites, born here, is called 'gropers,' if you take me, sir. Sand-gropers. And they all need protection one from the other. And there's half-pay officers, civil and military, and clergy, scattered through the bush——"

"Need protecting from one another, and yet he says there's nobody to hold up the coach," thought Jack to himself, cynically.

The bush had alternated with patches of wild scrub. But now came clearings: a little wooden house, and an orchard of trees planted in rows, with a grazing field beyond. Then more flat meadows, and ploughed spaces, and a humpy or a shack here and there: children playing around, and hens: then a regular homestead, with a verandah on either side, and creepers climbing up, and fences about.

"The soil is red!" said Jack.

"Clay! That's clay! No more sand, except in patches, all the way to Albany. This is Guildford where the roses grow."