of that in Bourke. But there's another youngster coming,
and I'll swear that'll be Bogan's all right.

"A curious thing about Bogan is that he's begun to be fidgety about his
personal appearance--and you know he wasn't a dood. He wears a collar
now, and polishes his boots; he wears elastic-sides, and polishes 'em
himself--the only thing is that he blackens over the elastic. He can do
many things for himself, and he's proud of it. He says he can see many
things that he couldn't see when he had his eyes. You seldom hear him
swear, save in a friendly way; he seems much gentler, but he reckons he
would stand a show with Barcoo-Rot even now, if Barcoo would stand up in
front of him and keep yelling----"

"By the way," I asked, "how did Bogan lose the sight of his other eye?"

"Sleeping out in the rain when he was drunk," said Mitchell. "He got a
cold in his eye." Then he asked, suddenly:

"Did you ever see a blind man cry?"

"No," I said.

"Well, I have," said Mitchell.

"You know Bogan wears goggles to hide his eyes--his wife made him do
that. The chaps often used to drop round and have a yarn with Bogan
and cheer him up, and one evening I was sitting smoking with him, and
yarning about old times, when he got very quiet all of a sudden, and I
saw a tear drop from under one of his shutters and roll down his cheek.
It wasn't the eye he lost saving Campbell--it was the old wall-eye he
used to use in the days before he was called 'One-eyed Bogan.' I suppose
he thought it was dark and that I couldn't see his face. (There's a good
many people in this world who think you can't see because they can't.)
It made me feel like I used to feel sometimes in the days when I felt
things----"

"Come on, Mitchell," said Tom Hall, "you've had enough beer."

"I think I have," said Mitchell. "Besides, I promised to send a wire
to Jake Boreham to tell him that his mother's dead. Jake's shearing at
West-o'-Sunday; shearing won't be over for three or four weeks, and Jake
wants an excuse to get away without offending old Baldy and come down
and have a fly round with us before the holidays are over."

Down at the telegraph-office Mitchell took a form and filled it in very
carefully: "Jacob Boreham. West-o'-Sunday Station. Bourke. Come home at
once. Mother is dead. In terrible trouble. Father dying.--MARY BOREHAM."

"I think that will do," said Mitchell. "It ought to satisfy Baldy, and
it won't give Jake too much of a shock, because he ha