"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