"Why, one of "em come to me an" told me all about it."

There was an involuntary guffaw.

"Look here, Bob," said Billy Woods, the rouseabouts" secretary, kindly.

"Don"t you make a fool of yourself. You"ll have all the chaps laughing at you. Those girls are only working you for all you"re worth. I suppose one of "em came crying and whining to you. Don"t you bother about "em.

_You_ don"t know "em; they can pump water at a moment"s notice. You haven"t had any experience with women yet, Bob."

"She didn"t come whinin" and cryin" to me," said the Giraffe, dropping his tw.a.n.ging drawl a little. "She looked me straight in the face an"

told me all about it."

"I say, Giraffe," said Box-o"-Tricks, "what have you been doin"? You"ve bin down there on the nod. I"m surprised at yer, Giraffe."

"An" he pretends to be so gory soft an" innocent, too," growled the Bogan. "We know all about you, Giraffe."

"Look here, Giraffe," said Mitch.e.l.l the shearer. "I"d never have thought it of you. We all thought you were the only virgin youth west the river; I always thought you were a moral young man. You mustn"t think that because your conscience is p.r.i.c.king you everyone else"s is."

"I ain"t had anythin" to do with them," said the Giraffe, drawling again. "I ain"t a cove that goes in for that sort of thing. But other chaps has, and I think they might as well help "em out of their fix."

"They"re a rotten crowd," said Billy Woods. "You don"t know them, Bob.

Don"t bother about them-they"re not worth it. Put your money in your pocket. You"ll find a better use for it before next shearing."

"Better shout, Giraffe," said Box-o"-Tricks.

Now in spite of the Giraffe"s softness he was the hardest man in Bourke to move when he"d decided on what he thought was "the fair thing to do."

Another peculiarity of his was that on occasion, such for instance as "sayin" a few words" at a strike meeting, he would straighten himself, drop the tw.a.n.g, and rope in his drawl, so to speak.

"Well, look here, you chaps," he said now. "I don"t know anything about them women. I s"pose they"re bad, but I don"t suppose they"re worse than men has made them. All I know is that there"s four women turned out, without any stuff, and every woman in Bourke, an" the police, an" the law agen "em. An" the fact that they is women is agenst "em most of all.

You don"t expect "em to hump their swags to Sydney! Why, only I ain"t got the stuff I wouldn"t trouble yer. I"d pay their fares meself. Look,"

he said, lowering his voice, "there they are now, an" one of the girls is cryin". Don"t let "em see yer lookin"."

I dropped softly from the plank and peeped out with the rest.

They stood by the fence on the opposite side of the street, a bit up towards the railway station, with their portmanteaux and bundles at their feet. One girl leant with her arms on the fence rail and her face buried in them, another was trying to comfort her. The third girl and the woman stood facing our way. The woman was good-looking; she had a hard face, but it might have been made hard. The third girl seemed half defiant, half inclined to cry. Presently she went to the other side of the girl who was crying on the fence and put her arm round her shoulder.

The woman suddenly turned her back on us and stood looking away over the paddocks.

The hat went round. Billy Woods was first, then Box-o"-Tricks, and then Mitch.e.l.l.

Billy contributed with eloquent silence. "I was only jokin", Giraffe,"

said Box-o"-Tricks, dredging his pockets for a couple of shillings. It was some time after the shearing, and most of the chaps were hard up.

"Ah, well," sighed Mitch.e.l.l. "There"s no help for it. If the Giraffe would take up a collection to import some decent girls to this G.o.d-forgotten hole there might be some sense in it.... It"s bad enough for the Giraffe to undermine our religious prejudices, and tempt us to take a morbid interest in sick Chows and Afghans, and blacklegs and widows; but when he starts mixing us up with strange women it"s time to buck." And he prospected his pockets and contributed two shillings, some odd pennies, and a pinch of tobacco dust.

"I don"t mind helping the girls, but I"m d.a.m.ned if I"ll give a penny to help the old ----," said Tom Hall.

"Well, she was a girl once herself," drawled the Giraffe.

The Giraffe went round to the other pubs and to the union offices, and when he returned he seemed satisfied with the plate, but troubled about something else.

"I don"t know what to do for them for to-night," he said. "None of the pubs or boardin"-houses will hear of them, an" there ain"t no empty houses, an" the women is all agen "em."

"Not all," said Alice, the big, handsome barmaid from Sydney. "Come here, Bob." She gave the Giraffe half a sovereign and a look for which some of us would have paid him ten pounds--had we had the money, and had the look been transferable.

"Wait a minute, Bob," she said, and she went in to speak to the landlord.

"There"s an empty bedroom at the end of the store in the yard," she said when she came back. "They can camp there for to-night if they behave themselves. You"d better tell "em, Bob."

"Thank yer, Alice," said the Giraffe.

Next day, after work, the Giraffe and I drifted together and down by the river in the cool of the evening, and sat on the edge of the steep, drought-parched bank.

"I heard you saw your lady friends off this morning, Bob," I said, and was sorry I said it, even before he answered.

"Oh, they ain"t no friends of mine," he said. "Only four" poor devils of women. I thought they mightn"t like to stand waitin" with the crowd on the platform, so I jest offered to get their tickets an" told "em to wait round at the back of the station till the bell rung.... An" what do yer think they did, Harry?" he went on, with an exasperatingly unintelligent grin. "Why, they wanted to kiss me."

"Did they?"

"Yes. An" they would have done it, too, if I hadn"t been so long....

Why, I"m blessed if they didn"t kiss me hands."

"You don"t say so."

"G.o.d"s truth. Somehow I didn"t like to go on the platform with them after that; besides, they was cryin", and I can"t stand women cryin".

But some of the chaps put them into an empty carriage." He thought a moment. Then:

"There"s some terrible good-hearted fellers in the world," he reflected.

I thought so too. "Bob," I said, "you"re a single man. Why don"t you get married and settle down?"

"Well," he said, "I ain"t got no wife an" kids, that"s a fact. But it ain"t my fault."

He may have been right about the wife. But I thought of the look that Alice had given him, and--

"Girls seem to like me right enough," he said, "but it don"t go no further than that. The trouble is that I"m so long, and I always seem to get shook after little girls. At least there was one little girl in Bendigo that I was properly gone on."

"And wouldn"t she have you?"

"Well, it seems not."

"Did you ask her?"

"Oh, yes, I asked her right enough."

"Well, and what did she say?"

"She said it would be redicilus for her to be seen trottin" alongside of a chimbley like me."

"Perhaps she didn"t mean that. There are any amount of little women who like tall men."

"I thought of that too--afterwards. P"r"aps she didn"t mean it that way.

I s"pose the fact of the matter was that she didn"t cotton on to me, and wanted to let me down easy. She didn"t want to hurt me feelin"s, if yer understand--she was a very good-hearted little girl. There"s some terrible tall fellers where I come from, and I know two as married little girls."