Selected Stories Read Online Free PDF

quickly. Once he paused a moment to listen, and then distinctly heard a sound as of a tool or stone being struck against the end of the new drive. Jack was safe!
    Tom dug on until the clay suddenly 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.
    Afew 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.

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 was an important place, and went on, with the blindness peculiar to Governments, till they got to within two miles of the town. Then they ran short of rum and rations, and sent a man on to get them, and make enquiries. The member never came back, and two more were sent to find him—or Hungerford. Three days later the two returned in an exhausted condition, and submitted a motion of want-of-confidence, which was lost. Then the whole House went on and was lost also. Strange to relate, that Government was never missed.
    However, we found Hungerford and camped there for a day. The town is right on the Queensland border, and an interprovincial rabbit-proof fence—with rabbits on both sides of it—runs across the main street.
    This fence is a standing joke with Australian rabbits—about the only joke they have out there, except the memory of Pasteur and poison and inoculation. It is amusing to go a little way out of town about sunset, and watch them crack Noah’s Ark rabbit jokes about that fence, and burrow under and play leap-frog over till they get tired. One old buck rabbit sat up and nearly laughed his ears off at a joke of his own about that fence. He laughed so much that he couldn’t get away when I reached for him. I could hardly eat him for laughing. I never saw a rabbit laugh before; but I’ve seen a ’possum do it.
    Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New South Wales, and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough,both the pubs are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it—we had asked for English ale.
    The post office is in New South Wales, and the policebarracks in Bananaland. The police cannot do anything if there’s a row going on across the street in New South Wales, except to send to Brisbane and have an extradition warrant applied for; and they don’t do much if there’s a row in Queensland. Most of the rows are across the border, where the pubs are.
    At least, I believe that’s how it is, though the man who told me might have been a liar. Another man said he was a liar, but