constable who officiates at the inquest, and forwarded to the Minister
of Justice along with the depositions.

It was the end of the shearing season. Mitchell and his mate had been
lucky enough to get two good sheds in succession, and were going to take
the coach from Hungerford to Bourke on their way to Sydney. The morning
stars were bright yet, and they sat down to a final billy of tea, two
dusty Johnny-cakes, and a scrag of salt mutton.

"Yes," said Mitchell's mate, "and I'll be glad to see her too."

"I suppose you will," said Mitchell. He placed his pint-pot between his
feet, rested his arm against his knee, and stirred the tea meditatively
with the handle of his pocket-knife. It was vaguely understood that
Mitchell had been married at one period of his chequered career.

"I don't think we ever understood women properly," he said, as he took
a cautious sip to see if his tea was cool and sweet enough, for his lips
were sore; "I don't think we ever will--we never took the trouble to
try, and if we did it would be only wasted brain power that might just
as well be spent on the blackfellow's lingo; because by the time you've
learnt it they'll be extinct, and woman 'll be extinct before you've
learnt her.... The morning star looks bright, doesn't it?"

"Ah, well," said Mitchell after a while, "there's many little things
we might try to understand women in. I read in a piece of newspaper the
other day about how a man changes after he's married; how he gets short,
and impatient, and bored (which is only natural), and sticks up a wall
of newspaper between himself and his wife when he's at home; and how it
comes like a cold shock to her, and all her air-castles vanish, and
in the end she often thinks about taking the baby and the clothes she
stands in, and going home for sympathy and comfort to mother.

"Perhaps she never got a word of sympathy from her mother in her life,
nor a day's comfort at home before she was married; but that doesn't
make the slightest difference. It doesn't make any difference in your
case either, if you haven't been acting like a dutiful son-in-law.

"Somebody wrote that a woman's love is her whole existence, while a
man's love is only part of his--which is true, and only natural and
reasonable, all things considered. But women never consider as a rule. A
man can't go on talking lovey-dovey talk for ever, and listening to his
young wife's prattle when he's got to think about making a living,