One thousand square miles of country--fine grazing land most of it, so long as the creeks kept running--and no more than eleven thousand head of stock upon it, seemed, with decent luck, a safe enough proposition, though you'll remember I was a bit doubtful that day on your veranda at Emu Point, when we talked about my marrying.

The truth was that directly I saw Bridget, she carried me clean off my head--and that's the long and short of it.
Besides, I'd been down south a good while, then, figuring about in the Legislative Assembly and swaggering on my prospects.

I'd left Ninnis to oversee up here, and Ninnis didn't know the Leura like some of the old hands, who told me afterwards they'd seen the big drought coming as long back as that.
I remember one old chap on the river, when he was sold up by the Bank in the last bad times, and his wife had died of it all, saying to me, 'The Leura isn't the place for a woman.' And he was right.

Well, I saw that I was straight up against it that spring when we had had a poor summer and a dry winter, and the Unionists started trouble cutting my horses' throats, and burning woodsheds and firing the only good grass on my run that I could rely upon.

I didn't say much about it, but I have no doubt that it made me bad-tempered and less pleasant to live with....