bright moonlight,
making him look as if his throat was cut. The smile was the one he
went to sleep with when his wife slipped the cushion under his head and
thoughtfully removed the loose change from about his person. Near him
lay a heap that was Danny, and spread over the bare boards were the
others, some with heads pillowed on their swags, and every man about as
drunk as his neighbour. Yankee Jack lay across the door of the barmaid's
bedroom, with one arm bent under his head, the other lying limp on the
doorstep, his handsome face turned out to the bright moonlight. The
"family" were sound asleep in the detached cottage, and Alice--the only
capable person on the premises--was left to put out the lamps and "shut
up" for the night. She extinguished the light in the bar, came out,
locked the door, and picked her way among and over the drunkards to the
end of the verandah. She clasped her hands behind her head, stretched
herself, and yawned, and then stood for a few moments looking out into
the night, which softened the ragged line of mulga to right and
left, and veiled the awful horizon of that great plain with which the
"traveller" commenced, or ended, the thirty-mile "dry stretch". Then she
moved towards her own door; before it she halted and stood, with folded
arms, looking down at the drunken Adonis at her feet.

She breathed a long breath with a sigh in it, went round to the back,
and presently returned with a buggy-cushion, which she slipped under his
head--her face close to his--very close. Then she moved his arms gently
off the threshold, stepped across him into her room, and locked the door
behind her.

There was an uneasy movement in the heap that stood, or lay, for Danny.
It stretched out, turned over, struggled to its hands and knees, and
became an object. Then it crawled to the wall, against which it
slowly and painfully up-ended itself, and stood blinking round for
the water-bag, which hung from the verandah rafters in a line with its
shapeless red nose. It staggered forward, held on by the cords, felt
round the edge of the bag for the tot, and drank about a quart of water.
Then it staggered back against the wall, stood for a moment muttering
and passing its hand aimlessly over its poor ruined head, and finally
collapsed into a shapeless rum-smelling heap and slept once more.

The jackeroo at the end of the verandah had awakened from his drunken
sleep, but had not moved. He lay huddled on his side, with h