amels moving out across the sunset.
There's something snaky about camels. They remind me of turtles and
goannas.

Somebody said, "Here's Bourke."

HE'D COME BACK

The yarn was all lies, I suppose; but it wasn't bad. A city bushman told
it, of course, and he told it in the travellers' hut.

"As true's God hears me I never meant to desert her in cold blood," he
said. "We'd only been married about two years, and we'd got along grand
together; but times was hard, and I had to jump at the first chance of a
job, and leave her with her people, an' go up-country."

He paused and fumbled with his pipe until all ears were brought to bear
on him.

"She was a beauty, and no mistake; she was far too good for me--I often
wondered how she came to have a chap like me."

He paused again, and the others thought over it--and wondered too,
perhaps.

The joker opened his lips to speak, but altered his mind about it.

"Well, I travelled up into Queensland, and worked back into Victoria 'n'
South Australia, an' I wrote home pretty reg'lar and sent what money
I could. Last I got down on to the south-western coast of South
Australia--an' there I got mixed up with another woman--you know what
that means, boys?"

Sympathetic silence.

"Well, this went on for two years, and then the other woman drove me to
drink. You know what a woman can do when the devil's in her?"

Sound between a sigh and a groan from Lally Thompson. "My oath," he
said, sadly.

"You should have made it _three_ years, Jack," interposed the joker;
"you said two years before." But he was suppressed.

"Well, I got free of them both, at last--drink and the woman, I
mean; but it took another--it took a couple of years to pull myself
straight--"

Here the joker opened his mouth again, but was warmly requested to shut
it.

"Then, chaps, I got thinking. My conscience began to hurt me, and--and
hurt worse every day. It nearly drove me to drink again. Ah, boys, a
man--if he is a man--can't expect to wrong a woman and escape scot-free
in the end." (Sigh from Lally Thompson.) "It's the one thing that always
comes home to a man, sooner or later--you know what that means, boys."

Lally Thompson: "My oath!"

The joker: "Dry up yer crimson oath! What do you know about women?"

Cries of "Order!"

"Well," continued the story-teller, "I got thinking. I heard that my
wife had broken her heart when I left her, and that made matters worse.
I began to feel very bad