e floors, there being no timber
for them. We puddled the mud and got the black gins to tramp it down,
adding a picaninny to their backs to increase their weight.

About July of this year, Fitzmaurice returned from Townsville with three
horses and a light dray on which he had brought his wife and little
girl.

Taking a plan of the hotel with me, I started for Aramac to interview
Mr. Sword, the P.M. (afterwards member of the Land Court), to obtain a
provisional license. This he refused to grant until the building was
erected.

When I returned Winton was entirely out of liquor, and Allen did a great
business in selling bottles of painkiller as a substitute. It was
laughable to see men take a bottle out of their pocket, saying, "Have a
nip, mate, it's only five shillings a bottle?"

About March, 1880, the Western River was in high flood, and ran miles
wide.

Sub-Inspector Kaye, of the native police, and Mr. John Haines, the
manager of Elderslie Station, were in town, and wished to get to the
station 40 miles down the river.

We put our carpenter on to make a boat, which carried them and the
troopers safely to their destination.

Shortly afterwards Sub-Inspector Fred Murray came out from Blackall,
bringing with him Sergeant Feltham, who formed the police station in a
small building which I rented to them.

There was only a log to which offenders were chained. One day Feltham
went down to the store, leaving a prisoner chained up. Shortly
afterwards he was surprised when he saw his prisoner (who was a very
powerful man) marching into the public house carrying the log on his
shoulder, and call for drinks. It took three men to get him back to the
lock-up.

Fitzmaurice's teams arriving, we were enabled to complete the store
building, stock it, and the hotel, and resume business, which had been
suspended owing to running out of goods, etc. My teams had gone down
empty, and were now on their way up with more loading.

The original name for the town--now known as Winton--was Pelican
Water-holes. Bob Allen, the first resident, whom I have mentioned, acted
as post-master. The mail service was a fortnightly one, going west to
Wokingham Creek, thence _via_ Sesbania to Hughenden. There was no date
stamp supplied to the office, but by writing "Pelican Water-holes" and
the date across the stamps, the post mark was made, and the stamps
cancelled. This was found to be very slow and unsatisfactory.

Allen was asked to propose a