Just A Girl by Charles Garvice

The Australian winter had passed, the spring was smiling with strict impartiality on Three Star and Dog's Ear alike, and the heavy rains had swollen the stream beside which Norman and Esmeralda had sat in the placid moonlight into a mighty torrent, whose brawling filled the camp with a sullen music, to which the men worked as to an accompaniment.

Things were looking up at Three Star, and times were flush. The Eldorado had been newly painted--a brilliant red picked out with green--some of the tents had developed into quite respectable wooden houses; MacGrath's whisky had not improved, and was still as deadly; but empty champagne cases, piled ostentatiously outside the saloon--for the benefit of Dog's Ear, which had not been lucky--indicated the prosperity of the camp.