who knew her or had seen her letters to you," he
said between the puffs. "She's happy and contented enough, I believe?"

"Yes," said Joe, "at least while I was there. She's never easy when I'm
away. I might have made her a good deal more happy and contented without
hurting myself much."

Mitchell smoked long, soft, measured puffs.

His mate shifted uneasily and glanced at him a couple of times, and
seemed to become impatient, and to make up his mind about something;
or perhaps he got an idea that Mitchell had been "having" him, and
felt angry over being betrayed into maudlin confidences; for he asked
abruptly:

"How is your wife now, Mitchell?"

"I don't know," said Mitchell calmly.

"Don't know?" echoed the mate. "Didn't you treat her well?"

Mitchell removed his pipe and drew a long breath.

"Ah, well, I tried to," he said wearily.

"Well, did you put your theory into practice?"

"I did," said Mitchell very deliberately.

Joe waited, but nothing came.

"Well?" he asked impatiently, "How did it act? Did it work well?"

"I don't know," said Mitchell (puff); "she left me."

"What!"

Mitchell jerked the half-smoked pipe from his mouth, and rapped the
burning tobacco out against the toe of his boot.

"She left me," he said, standing up and stretching himself. Then, with a
vicious jerk of his arm, "She left me for--another kind of a fellow!"

He looked east towards the public-house, where they were taking the
coach-horses from the stable.

"Why don't you finish your tea, Joe? The billy's getting cold."

Mitchell on Women

"All the same," said Mitchell's mate, continuing an argument by the
camp-fire; "all the same, I think that a woman can stand cold water
better than a man. Why, when I was staying in a boarding-house in
Dunedin, one very cold winter, there was a lady lodger who went down to
the shower-bath first thing every morning; never missed one; sometimes
went in freezing weather when I wouldn't go into a cold bath for a
fiver; and sometimes she'd stay under the shower for ten minutes at a
time."

"How'd you know?"

"Why, my room was near the bath-room, and I could hear the shower and
tap going, and her floundering about."

"Hear your grandmother!" exclaimed Mitchell, contemptuously. "You don't
know women yet. Was this woman married? Did she have a husband there?"

"No; she was a young widow."

"Ah! well, it would have been the same if she was a young girl--or an
old one. Were