runk gently through the door.

"You's better go out for a while, Danny," he said; "there wasn't much
harm in what you said, but your cheque's gone, and that makes all the
difference. It's time you went back to the station. You've got to be
careful what you say now."

When Jack returned to the parlour the barmaid had a smile for him; but
he didn't take it. He went and stood before the fire, with his foot
resting on the fender and his elbow on the mantelshelf, and looked
blackly at a print against the wall before his face.

"The old beast!" said Alice, referring to Danny. "He ought to be kicked
off the place!"

"HE'S AS GOOD AS YOU!"

The voice was Jack's; he flung the stab over his shoulder, and with it a
look that carried all the contempt he felt.

She gasped, looked blankly from face to face, and witheringly at the
back of Jack's head; but that didn't change colour or curl the least
trifle less closely.

"Did you hear that?" she cried, appealing to anyone. "You're a nice lot
o' men, you are, to sit there and hear a woman insulted, and not one of
you man enough to take her part--cowards!"

The Sydney jackeroo rose impulsively, but Jack glanced at him, and he
sat down again. She covered her face with her hands and ran hysterically
to her room.

That afternoon another bushman arrived with a cheque, and shouted five
times running at a pound a shout, and at intervals during the rest of
the day when they weren't fighting or gambling.

Alice had "got over her temper" seemingly, and was even kind to the
humble and contrite Danny, who became painfully particular with his
"Thanky, Alice"--and afterwards offensive with his unnecessarily
frequent threats to smash the first man who insulted her.

But let us draw the curtain close before that Sunday afternoon at
Stiffner's, and hold it tight. Behind it the great curse of the West is
in evidence, the chief trouble of unionism--drink, in its most selfish,
barren, and useless form.

. . . . .

All was quiet at Stiffner's. It was after midnight, and Stiffner lay
dead-drunk on the broad of his back on the long moonlit verandah,
with all his patrons asleep around him in various grotesque positions.
Stiffner's ragged grey head was on a cushion, and a broad maudlin smile
on his red, drink-sodden face, the lower half of which was bordered by
a dirty grey beard, like that of a frilled lizard. The red handkerchief
twisted round his neck had a ghastly effect in the