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 Sandy and the
Schoolmistress in Bret Harte, and I thought it would be a good idea to
stretch out in the sun and pretend to be helpless; so I threw my hat on
the ground and lay down, with my head in the blazing heat, in the most
graceful position I could get at, and I tried to put a look of pained
regret on my face, as if I was dreaming of my lost boyhood and me
mother. I thought, perhaps, the Girl would pity me, and I felt sure
she'd stoop and pick up my hat and put it gently over my poor troubled
head. Then I was going to become conscious for a moment, and look
hopelessly round, and into her eyes, and then start and look sorrowful
and ashamed, and stagger to my feet, taking off my hat like the Silver
King does to the audience when he makes his first appearance drunk on
the stage; and then I was going to reel off, trying to walk as straight
as I could. And next day I was going to clean up my teeth and nails and
put on a white shirt, and start to be a new man henceforth.

"Well, as I lay there with my eyes shut, I heard the footsteps come up
and stop, and heard 'em whisper, and I thought I heard the Pretty Girl
say `Poor fellow!' or something that sounded like that; and just then I
got a God-almighty poke in the ribs with an umbrella--at least I suppose
it was aimed for my ribs; but women are bad shots, and the point of
the umbrella caught me in the side, just between the