"Oh, no, it won't. He won't never trust me any more. I've never been caned
in that school yet, Will, and if I am I'll never go again.
Oh! why will you run away from home, Will, and play the wag, and steal,
and get us all into such trouble? You don't know how mother takes on about it
-- you don't know how it hurts father! I've deceived the master,
and mother and father to-day, just because you're so -- so selfish,"
and he laid down and cried himself to sleep.

Bill lay awake and thought till daylight; then he got up quietly,
put on his clothes, and stole away from the house and across the flat,
followed by the dog, who thought it was a 'possum-hunting expedition.
Bill wished the dog would not be quite so demonstrative,
at least until they got away from the house. He went straight to the shaft,
let himself down carefully on to one of the old logs,
and stooped to pick up the note, gleaming white in the sickly summer daylight.
Then the rotten timber gave way suddenly, without a moment's warning.

. . . . .

They found him that morning at about nine o'clock. The dog attracted
the attention of an old fossicker passing to his work. The letter was gripped
in Bill's right hand when they brought him up. They took him home,
and the father went for a doctor. Bill came to himself a little
just before the last, and said: "Mother! I wasn't running away, mother
-- tell father that -- I -- I wanted to try and catch a 'possum
on the ground. . . . Where's Joe? I want Joe. Go out, mother, a minute,
and send Joe."

"Here I am, Bill," said Joe, in a choking, terrified voice.