“Not the first time I’ve tossed for eggs either,” he said, busy grilling steak on a gridiron made from bent-up fencing wire.  “Out on the Victoria once they got scarce, and the cook used to boil all he had and serve the dice-box with ’em, the chap who threw the highest taking the lot.”

“Ever try to boil an emu’s egg in a quart-pot?” the man from Beyanst asked, “lending a hand” with another piece of fencing wire, using it as a fork to turn the steak on the impromptu gridiron.  “It goes in all right, but when it’s cooked it won’t come out, and you have to use the quart-pot for an egg-cup and make tea later on.”

“A course dinner,” Dan called that; and then nothing being forthcoming to toss with—­dice or money not being among our permanent property—­the eggs were distributed according to the “holding capacity” of the company:  one for the missus, two for the Maluka, and half a dozen each for the other two.

The traveller had no objection to beginning under a dozen, but Dan used his allowance as a “relish” with his steak.  “One egg!” he chuckled as he shelled his relish and I enjoyed my breakfast.  “Often wonder how ever she keeps alive.”

The damper proved “just a bit boggy” in the middle, so we ate the crisp outside slices and gave the boggy parts to the boys.  They appeared to enjoy it, and seeing this, after breakfast the Maluka asked them what they thought of the missus as a cook.  “Good damper, eh?” he said, and Billy Muck rubbing his middle, full of damper and satisfaction, answered:  “My word!  That one damper good fellow.  Him sit down long time”, and all the camp, rubbing middles, echoed his sentiments.  The stodgy damper had made them feel full and uncomfortable; and to be full and uncomfortable after a meal spells happiness to a black fellow.

“Hope it won’t sit too heavy on my chest,” chuckled the man from Beyanst, then, remembering that barely twelve hours before he had ridden into the camp a stranger, began “begging pardon, ma’am,” most profusely again, and hoped we’d excuse him “making so free with a lady.”

“It’s your being so friendly like, ma’am,” he explained.  “Most of the others I’ve struck seemed too good for rough chaps like us.  Of course,” he added hastily, “that’s not saying that you’re not as good as ’em.  You ain’t a Freezer on a pedestal, that’s all.”

“Thank Heaven,” the Maluka murmured and the man from Beyanst sympathised with him.  “Must be a bit off for their husbands,” he said; and his apologies were forgotten in the absorbing topic of “Freezers.”

“A Freezer on a pedestal,” he had said.  “Goddess,” the world prefers to call it; and tradition depicts the bushman worshipping afar off.

But a “Freezer” is what he calls it to himself, and contrary to all tradition, goes on his way unmoved.  And why shouldn’t he?  He may be, and generally is, sadly in need of a woman friend, “some one to share his joys and sorrows with”, but because he knows few women is no reason why he should stand afar off and adore the unknowable.  “Friendly like” is what appeals to us all; and the bush-folk are only men, not monstrosities—­rough, untutored men for the most part.  The difficult part to understand is how any woman can choose to stand aloof and freeze, with warm-hearted men all around her willing to take her into their lives.