ut the swagman smoked on.

'Have a drink?' she suggested, to keep her end up.

'No, thank you, missus. I had one an hour or so ago. I never take more
than two a-day--one before breakfast, if I can get it, and a night-cap.'

What a contrast to Myers! she thought.

'Come and have some tea; it's ready.'

'Thank you. I don't mind if I do.'

They got on very slowly, but comfortably. She got little out of him
except the facts that he had a selection, had finished a contract,
and was 'just having a look at the country.' He politely declined a
'shake-down', saying he had a comfortable camp, and preferred being out
this weather. She got his name with a 'by-the-way', as he rose to leave,
and he went back to camp.

He caught a cod, and they had it for breakfast next morning, and
got along so comfortable over breakfast that he put in the forenoon
pottering about the gates and stable with a hammer, a saw, and a box of
nails.

And, well--to make it short--when the big Tinned Dog shed had cut-out,
and the shearers struck the Half-way House, they were greatly impressed
by a brand-new sign whereon glistened the words--

HALF-WAY HOUSE HOTEL,
BY
JAMES GRIMSHAW.
Good Stabling.

The last time I saw Mrs Grimshaw she looked about thirty-five.

At Dead Dingo.

It was blazing hot outside and smothering hot inside the weather-board
and iron shanty at Dead Dingo, a place on the Cleared Road, where
there was a pub. and a police-station, and which was sometimes called
'Roasted', and other times 'Potted Dingo'--nicknames suggested by the
everlasting drought and the vicinity of the one-pub. township of Tinned
Dog.

From the front verandah the scene was straight-cleared road, running
right and left to Out-Back, and to Bourke (and ankle-deep in the red
sand dust for perhaps a hundred miles); the rest blue-grey bush, dust,
and the heat-wave blazing across every object.

There were only four in the bar-room, though it was New Year's Day.
There weren't many more in the county. The girl sat behind the bar--the
coolest place in the shanty--reading 'Deadwood Dick'. On a worn and torn
and battered horse-hair sofa, which had seen cooler places and better
days, lay an awful and healthy example, a bearded swagman, with his arms
twisted over his head and his face to the wall, sleeping off the death
of the dead drunk. Bill and Jim--shearer and rouseabout--sat at a table
pl