he had lost his wife in Sydney while he was away.

They sent him a wire to the Boulder Soak, or somewhere
out back of White Feather, to say that his wife was seriously ill;
but the wire went wrong, somehow, after the manner of telegrams not connected
with mining, on the lines of "the Western". They sent him a wire
to say that his wife was dead, and that reached him all right --
only a week late.

I can imagine it. He got the message at dinner-time,
or when they came back to the camp. His mate wanted him
to sit in the shade, or lie in the tent, while he got the billy boiled.
"You must brace up and pull yourself together, Tom, for the sake
of the youngsters." And Tom for long intervals goes walking up and down,
up and down, by the camp -- under the brassy sky or the gloaming --
under the brilliant star-clusters that hang over the desert plain,
but never raising his eyes to them; kicking a tuft of grass
or a hole in the sand now and then, and seeming to watch
the progress of the track he is tramping out. The wife of twenty years
was with him -- though two thousand miles away -- till that message came.

I can imagine Tome sitting with his mates round the billy,
they talking in quiet, subdued tones about the track,
the departure of coaches, trains and boats -- arranging for
Tom's journey East, and the working of the claim in his absence.
Or Tom lying on his back in his bunk, with his hands under his head
and his eyes fixed on the calico above -- thinking, thinking, thinking.
Thinking, with a touch of his boyhood's faith perhaps;
or wondering what he had done in his long, hard-working married life,
that God should do this thing to him now, of all times.