y that token they guessed how mad he was. 'Twas a rough shed, with
a free and lurid vocabulary, but had they all sworn in chorus, with
One-eyed Bogan as lead, it would not have done justice to Tom's
feelings--and they realized this.

The Oracle took down his bridle from its peg, and started for the door
amid a respectful and sympathetic silence, which was only partly broken
once by the voice of Mitchell, which asked in an awed whisper:

"Going ter ketch yer horse, Tom?" The Oracle nodded, and passed on; he
spake no word--he was too full for words.

Five minutes passed, and then the voice of Mitchell was heard again,
uninterrupted by the clatter of tinware. It said in impressive tones:

"It would not be a bad idea for some of you chaps that camp in the bunks
along there, to have a look at your things. Scotty's bunk is next to
Tom's."

Scotty shot out of his place as if a snake had hold of his leg, starting
a plank in the table and upsetting three soup plates. He reached for his
bunk like a drowning man clutching at a plank, and tore out the bedding.
Again, Smith hadn't forgot.

Then followed a general overhaul, and it was found in most cases that
Smith had remembered. The pent-up reservoir of blasphemy burst forth.

The Oracle came up with Smith that night at the nearest shanty, and
found that he had forgotten again, and in several instances, and was
forgetting some more under the influence of rum and of the flattering
interest taken in his case by a drunken Bachelor of Arts who happened to
be at the pub. Tom came in quietly from the rear, and crooked his finger
at the shanty-keeper. They went apart from the rest, and talked together
a while very earnestly. Then they secretly examined Smith's swag, the
core of which was composed of Tom's and his mate's valuables.

Then The Oracle stirred up Smith's recollections and departed.

Smith was about again in a couple of weeks. He was damaged somewhat
physically, but his memory was no longer impaired.

HUNGERFORD

One of the hungriest cleared roads in New South Wales runs to within a
couple of miles of Hungerford, and stops there; then you strike through
the scrub to the town. There is no distant prospect of Hungerford--you
don't see the town till you are quite close to it, and then two or three
white-washed galvanized-iron roofs start out of the mulga.

They say that a past Ministry commenced to clear the road from Bourke,
under the impression that Hungerford