Bourke, the metropolis of the Great Scrubs, on the banks of the
Darling River, about five hundred miles from Sydney, was suffering
from a long drought when I was there in ninety-two; and the heat may
or may not have been another cause contributing to the success, from a
business point of view, of the Bourke garrison. There was much beer
boozing--and, besides, it was vaguely understood (as most things are
vaguely understood out there in the drought-haze) that the place the
Army came to save us from was hotter than Bourke. We didn't hanker to
go to a hotter place than Bourke. But that year there was an
extraordinary reason for the Army's great financial success there.

She was a little girl, nineteen or twenty, I should judge, the
prettiest girl I ever saw in the Army, and one of the prettiest I've
ever seen out of it. She had the features of an angel, but her
expression was wonderfully human, sweet and sympathetic. Her big grey
eyes were sad with sympathy for sufferers and sinners, and her poke
bonnet was full of bunchy, red-gold hair. Her first appearance was
somewhat dramatic--perhaps the Army arranged it so.

The Army used to pray, and thump the drum, and sing, and take up
collections every evening outside Watty Bothways' Hotel, the Carriers'
Arms. They performed longer and more often outside Watty's than any
other pub in town--perhaps because Watty was considered the most
hopeless publican and his customers the hardest crowd of boozers in
Bourke. The band generally began to play about dusk. Watty would
lean back comfortably in a basket easy-chair on his wide veranda, and
clasp his hands, in a calm, contented way, while the Army banged the
drum and got steam up, and whilst, perhaps, there was a barney going
on in the bar, or a bloodthirsty fight in the backyard. On such
occasions there was something like an indulgent or fatherly expression