denly fell away from his pick and left a
hole, about the size of a plate, in the "face" before him. "Thank God!"
said a hoarse, strained voice at the other side.

"All right, Jack!"

"Yes, old man; you are just in time; I've hardly got room to stand in,
and I'm nearly smothered." He was crouching against the "face" of the
new drive.

Tom dropped his pick and fell back against the man behind him.

"Oh, God! my back!" he cried.

Suddenly he struggled to his knees, and then fell forward on his hand
and dragged himself close to the hole in the end of the drive.

"Jack!" he gasped, "Jack!"

"Right, old man; what's the matter?"

"I've hurt my heart, Jack!--Put your hand--quick!... The sun's going
down."

Jack's hand came out through the hole, Tom gripped it, and then fell
with his face in the damp clay.

They half carried, half dragged him from the drive, for the roof was low
and they were obliged to stoop. They took him to the shaft and sent him
up, lashed to the rope.

A few blows of the pick, and Jack scrambled from his prison and went
to the surface, and knelt on the grass by the body of his brother. The
diggers gathered round and took off their hats. And the sun went down.

THE MAN WHO FORGOT

"Well, I dunno," said Tom Marshall--known as "The Oracle"--"I've heerd
o' sich cases before: they ain't commin, but--I've heerd o' sich
cases before," and he screwed up the left side of his face whilst he
reflectively scraped his capacious right ear with the large blade of a
pocket-knife.

They were sitting at the western end of the rouseabouts' hut, enjoying
the breeze that came up when the sun went down, and smoking and yarning.
The "case" in question was a wretchedly forlorn-looking specimen of the
swag-carrying clan whom a boundary-rider had found wandering about
the adjacent plain, and had brought into the station. He was a small,
scraggy man, painfully fair, with a big, baby-like head, vacant watery
eyes, long thin hairy hands, that felt like pieces of damp seaweed, and
an apologetic cringe-and-look-up-at-you manner. He professed to have
forgotten who he was and all about himself.

The Oracle was deeply interested in this case, as indeed he was in
anything else that "looked curious." He was a big, simple-minded
shearer, with more heart than brains, more experience than sense, and
more curiosity than either. It was a wonder that he had not profited,
even indirectly, by the last characteristic. His hea