as
gripped in Bill's right hand when they brought him up. They took him
home, and the father went for a doctor. Bill came to himself a little
just before the last, and said: "Mother! I wasn't running away,
mother--tell father that--I--I wanted to try and catch a 'possum on the
ground.... Where's Joe? I want Joe. Go out, mother, a minute, and send
Joe."

"Here I am, Bill," said Joe, in a choking, terrified voice.

"Has the master been yet?"

"No."

"Bend down, Joe. I went for the note, and the logs gave way. I meant to
be back before they was up. I dropped it down inside the bed; you watch
your chance and get it; and say you forgot it last night--say you
didn't like to give it--that won't be a lie. Tell the master I'm--I'm
sorry--tell the master never to send no notes no more--except by
girls--that's all.... Mother! Take the blankets off me--I'm dyin'."

The Story of the Oracle

"We young fellows," said "Sympathy Joe" to Mitchell, after tea, in
their first camp west the river--"and you and I ARE young fellows,
comparatively--think we know the world. There are plenty of young chaps
knocking round in this country who reckon they've been through it
all before they're thirty. I've met cynics and men-o'-the-world, aged
twenty-one or thereabouts, who've never been further than a trip to
Sydney. They talk about 'this world' as if they'd knocked around in
half-a-dozen other worlds before they came across here--and they are
just as off-hand about it as older Australians are when they talk about
this colony as compared with the others. They say: 'My oath!--same
here.' 'I've been there.' 'My oath!--you're right.' 'Take it from me!'
and all that sort of thing. They understand women, and have a contempt
for 'em; and chaps that don't talk as they talk, or do as they do, or
see as they see, are either soft or ratty. A good many reckon that 'life
ain't blanky well worth livin''; sometimes they feel so blanky somehow
that they wouldn't give a blank whether they chucked it or not; but
that sort never chuck it. It's mostly the quiet men that do that, and
if they've got any complaints to make against the world they make 'em at
the head station. Why, I've known healthy, single, young fellows
under twenty-five who drank to drown their troubles--some because
they reckoned the world didn't understand nor appreciate 'em--as if it
COULD!"

"If the world don't understand or appreciate you," said Mitchell
solemnly, as he reached