The general store was fronted by a boardwalk shaded by tarpaulins, and further along were several small wooden cottages and a blacksmith’s forge where Charley Sawyer held sway and continued to argue ferociously with his spinster neighbours over his randy old dog. The police station was opposite – though to call it by such a grand name was a little ridiculous, for Jake Webber ran the office from his front room, and the prison cell was a lean-to at the back of the house.

A few Aborigines still followed their traditional ways, but most of them now lived in shacks on the northern edges of the settlement, where the old bush camp had once been. They’d slowly integrated into the community by working as jackaroos and drovers on the cattle stations and, after a great deal of cajoling from Gwyneth, sent their children to the school.

Bert and Sal Davenport who ran the Dog and Drover hotel, which was handily placed near the church, were not allowed by law to serve the natives in the pub, but the ever-wily Bert got around this by selling them beer from the back window. Unfortunately this led to some quite serious fights, for the natives had a low tolerance to alcohol, and now the townspeople were beginning to badger Jake to do something to stop Bert. Not that it would do any good, thought Gwyneth with a wry smile, for they’d discovered how to make a lethal hooch of their own from the berries and leaves they foraged from the bush.

She turned her attention back to her home. The original homestead had burned down long ago, and its replacement was destroyed by termites. In their place now stood a sturdy wooden house on concrete pillars which had been topped and tailed with beaten metal to deter the white ants. A veranda ran around the house, offering shade on the hottest day and a relatively cool place to sleep at night behind the fly netting, which had been firmly nailed in place.

Danny and his friend George Blake loved sleeping out there during school holidays, but Gwyneth suspected they often went walkabout at night, and that worried her. The bush was a dangerous place in the dark no matter how well you knew it, and even though they were usually accompanied by their Aboriginal mate, Billy Blue, Gwyneth couldn’t rest easy until she heard them return.

She gave a deep sigh. It was good to have young kids about the place again, for five of her other children had flown the nest years ago and were scattered all over Australia. She rarely saw them, and the only real contact she had was with Bethany’s daughter, Millicent, who’d recently moved to the area with her husband to work on Carey Downs Station.