ere good fellows,
and that she was sorry for some things she'd said to us. Then she
retired, fluttering and very much flushed, and hid herself behind the
hard woman--who, by the way, had an excrescence on her upper lip which
might have stood for a rivet.

Presently the Pretty Girl came from behind the big woman and stood
watching things with glistening eyes. Some of the chaps on the opposite
side of the ring moved a little to one side and all were careful not
to meet her eye--not to be caught looking at her--lest she should be
embarrassed. Watty had roused himself a little at the sound of a strange
voice in the Army (and such a clear, sweet voice too!) and had a look;
then he settled back peacefully again, but it was noticed that he didn't
snore that evening.

And when the Army prayed, the Pretty Girl knelt down with the rest on
the gravel. One or two tall bushmen bowed their heads as if they had to,
and One-eyed Bogan, with the blood washed from his face, stood with his
hat off, glaring round to see if he could catch anyone sniggering.

Mitchell, the shearer, said afterwards that the whole business made him
feel for the moment like he felt sometimes in the days when he used to
feel things.

The town discussed the Pretty Girl in the Army that night and for many
days thereafter, but no one could find out who she was or where she
belonged to--except that she came from Sydney last. She kept her secret,
if she had one, very close--or else the other S.-A. women were not to be
pumped. She lived in skillion-rooms at the back of the big weather-board
Salvation Army barracks with two other "lassies," who did washing and
sewing and nursing, and went shabby, and half starved themselves, and
were baked in the heat, like scores of women in the bush, and even as
hundreds of women, suffering from religious mania, slave and stint in
city slums, and neglect their homes, husbands and children--for the
glory of Booth.

The Pretty Girl was referred to as Sister Hannah by the Army people,
and came somehow to be known by sinners as "Miss Captain." I don't know
whether that was her real name or what rank she held in the Army, if
indeed she held any.

She sold _War Crys_, and the circulation doubled in a day. One-eyed
Bogan, being bailed up unexpectedly, gave her "half a caser" for a
_Cry_, and ran away without the paper or the change. Jack Mitchell
bought a _Cry_ for the first time in his life, and read it. He said
he found some of th