g, Bill, if I got it,' was the retort. 'You
needn't come round chewing my lug then. I'd give you one drink and no
more.'

The publican at Dead Camel, station managers, professional shearers,
even one or two solvent squatters and promising cockatoos, tried their
luck in vain. In answer to the suggestion that she ought to have a man
to knock round and look after things, she retorted that she had had one,
and was perfectly satisfied. Few trav'lers on those tracks but tried
'a bit of bear-up' in that direction, but all to no purpose. Chequemen
knocked down their cheques manfully at the Half-way House--to get
courage and goodwill and 'put it off' till, at the last moment, they
offered themselves abjectly to the landlady; which was worse than bad
judgment on their part--it was very silly, and she told them so.

One or two swore off, and swore to keep straight; but she had no faith
in them, and when they found that out, it hurt their feelings so much
that they 'broke out' and went on record-breaking sprees.

About the end of each shearing the sign was touched up, with an extra
coat of paint on the 'Margaret', whereat suitors looked hopeless.

One or two of the rejected died of love in the horrors in the Big
Scrub--anyway, the verdict was that they died of love aggravated by the
horrors. But the climax was reached when a Queensland shearer, seizing
the opportunity when the mate, whose turn it was to watch him, fell
asleep, went down to the yard and hanged himself on the butcher's
gallows--having first removed his clothes, with some drink-lurid idea of
leaving the world as naked as he came into it. He climbed the pole, sat
astride on top, fixed the rope to neck and bar, but gave a yell--a yell
of drunken triumph--before he dropped, and woke his mates.

They cut him down and brought him to. Next day he apologised to Mrs
Myers, said, 'Ah, well! So long!' to the rest, and departed--cured of
drink and love apparently. The verdict was that the blanky fool should
have dropped before he yelled; but she was upset and annoyed, and it
began to look as though, if she wished to continue to live on happily
and comfortably for a few years longer at the fixed age of thirty-nine,
she would either have to give up the pub. or get married.

Her fame was carried far and wide, and she became a woman whose name was
mentioned with respect in rough shearing-sheds and huts, and round the
camp-fire.

About thirty miles south of Tinned Dog one Jame