"An' yer never knowed," reflected the Oracle.

"But I always had an idea when there was trouble at home,"
the digger went on presently, in his quiet, patient tone.
"I always knowed; I always had a kind of feeling that way -- I felt it --
no matter how far I was away. When the youngsters was sick I knowed it,
and I expected the letter that come. About a fortnight ago
I had a feeling that way when the wife was ill. The very stars
out there on the desert by the Boulder Soak seemed to say:
`There's trouble at home. Go home. There's trouble at home.'
But I never dreamed what that trouble was. One night I did make up my mind
to start in the morning, but when the morning came I hadn't an excuse,
and was ashamed to tell my mates the truth. They might have thought
I was going ratty, like a good many go out there." Then he broke off
with a sort of laugh, as if it just struck him that we might think
he was a bit off his head, or that his talk was getting uncomfortable for us.
"Curious, ain't it?" he said.

"Reminds me of a case I knowed, ----" commenced the Oracle, after a pause.

I could have pitched him overboard; but that was a mistake.
He and the old digger sat on the for'ard hatch half the night yarning,
mostly about queer starts, and rum go's, and curious cases
the Oracle had knowed, and I think the Oracle did him a lot of good somehow,
for he seemed more cheerful in the morning.

We were overcrowded in the steerage, but Mitchell managed
to give up his berth to the old digger without letting him know it.
Most of the chaps seemed anxious to make a place at the first table