ut banging a drum or testifying, and that was
all right. If a chap was hard up he borrowed a couple of quid from his
mate. If a strange family arrived without a penny, someone had to fix
'em up, and the storekeepers helped them till the man got work. For the
rest, we work out our own salvation, or damnation--as the case is--in
the bush, with no one to help us, except a mate, perhaps. The Army can't
help us, but a fellow-sinner can, sometimes, who has been through it all
himself. The Army is only a drag on the progress of Democracy, because
it attracts many who would otherwise be aggressive Democrats--and for
other reasons.

Besides, if we all reformed the Army would get deuced little from us for
its city mission.

The Pretty Girl went to service for a while with the stock inspector's
wife, who could get nothing out of her concerning herself or her
friends. She still slept at the barracks, stuck to the Army, and
attended its meetings.

It was Christmas morning, and there was peace in Bourke and goodwill
towards all men. There hadn't been a fight since yesterday evening, and
that had only been a friendly one, to settle an argument concerning
the past ownership, and, at the same time, to decide as to the future
possession of a dog.

It had been a hot, close night, and it ended in a suffocating sunrise.
The free portion of the male population were in the habit of taking
their blankets and sleeping out in "the Park," or town square, in hot
weather; the wives and daughters of the town slept, or tried to sleep,
with bedroom windows and doors open, while husbands lay outside on the
verandas. I camped in a corner of the park that night, and the sun woke
me.

As I sat up I caught sight of a swagman coming along the white, dusty
road from the direction of the bridge, where the cleared road ran across
west and on, a hundred and thirty miles, through the barren, broiling
mulga scrubs, to Hungerford, on the border of Sheol. I knew that
swagman's walk. It was John Merrick (Jack Moonlight), one-time
Shearers' Union secretary at Coonamble, and generally "Rep" (shearers'
representative) in any shed where he sheared. He was a "better-class
shearer," one of those quiet, thoughtful men of whom there are generally
two or three in the roughest of rough sheds, who have great influence,
and give the shed a good name from a Union point of view. Not quiet with
the resentful or snobbish reserve of the educated Englishman, but with a
sad o