by a dirty grey beard, like that of a frilled lizard. The red handkerchief
twisted round his neck had a ghastly effect in the 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.