scrub after dusk to certain necessary establishments in weather-board
cottages on the outskirts of the town; and that the broad-minded and
obliging ladies thereof became Salvation Army lassies.

But none of these things happened. Drunks quieted down or got out of
the way if they could when the Pretty Girl appeared on the scene,
fights and games of "headin' 'em" were adjourned, and weak, ordinary
language was used for the time being, and that was about all.

Nevertheless, most of the chaps were in love with that Pretty Girl in
the Army--all those who didn't _worship_ her privately. Long Bob
Brothers hovered round in hopes, they said, that she'd meet with an
accident--get run over by a horse or something--and he'd have to carry
her in; he scared the women at the barracks by dropping firewood over
the fence after dark. Barcoo-Rot, the meanest man in the back
country, was seen to drop a threepenny bit into the ring, and a rumour
was industriously circulated (by Tom Hall) to the effect that One-eyed
Bogan intended to shave and join the Army disguised as a lassie.

Handsome Jake Boreham (_alias_ Bore-'em), a sentimental shearer
from New Zealand, who had read Bret Harte, made an elaborate attempt
for the Pretty Girl, by pretending to be going to the dogs headlong,
with an idea of first winning her sorrowful interest and sympathy, and
then making an apparently hard struggle to straighten up for her sake.
He related his experience with the cheerful and refreshing absence of
reserve which was characteristic of him, and is of most bushmen.

"I'd had a few drinks," he said, "and was having a spell under a
gum by the river, when I saw the Pretty Girl and another Army woman
coming down along the bank. It was a blazing hot day. I thought of