the hint, so I thought I'd come over an' have
a knock round on this side for a year or two."

"And you never wrote to her?"

"No. What was the use of goin' pesterin' her with letters? I know what
trouble letters give me when I have to answer one. She'd have only had
to tell me the straight truth in a letter an' it wouldn't have done me
any good. But I've pretty well got over it by this time."

A few days later I went to Sydney. The Giraffe was the last I shook
hands with from the carriage window, and he slipped something in a piece
of newspaper into my hand.

"I hope yer won't be offended," he drawled, "but some of the chaps
thought you mightn't be too flush of stuff--you've been shoutin' a good
deal; so they put a quid or two together. They thought it might help yer
to have a bit of a fly round in Sydney."

I was back in Bourke before next shearing. On the evening of my arrival
I ran against the Giraffe; he seemed strangely shaken over something,
but he kept his hat on his head.

"Would yer mind takin' a stroll as fur as the Billerbong?" he said. "I
got something I'd like to tell yer."

His big, brown, sunburnt hands trembled and shook as he took a letter
from his pocket and opened it.

"I've just got a letter," he said. "A letter from that little girl at
Bendigo. It seems it was all a mistake. I'd like you to read it. Somehow
I feel as if I want to talk to a feller, and I'd rather talk to you than
any of them other chaps."

It was a good letter, from a big-hearted little girl. She had been
breaking her heart for the great ass all these months. It seemed that
he had left Bendigo without saying good-bye to her. "Somehow I couldn't
bring meself to it," he said, when I taxed him with it. She had never
been able to get his address until last week; then she got it from a
Bourke man who had gone south. She called him "an awful long fool,"
which he was, without the slightest doubt, and she implored him to
write, and come back to her.

"And will you go back, Bob?" I asked.

"My oath! I'd take the train to-morrer only I ain't got the stuff. But
I've got a stand in Big Billerbong Shed an' I'll soon knock a few quid
together. I'll go back as soon as ever shearin's over. I'm goin' to
write away to her to-night."

The Giraffe was the "ringer" of Big Billabong Shed that season. His
tallies averaged a hundred and twenty a day. He only sent his hat round
once during shearing, and it was noticed that he hesitated at fi