Thank God I've got a pretty strong will, and I've never done as I see so many chaps do, find forgetfulness in drink—but there's no saying what a man may come to. It's the nights that are the worst. I'm glad to get up at dawn and see to the beasts. And there's that infernal watching of the sky—looking out all the time for clouds that don't come—or if they do, end in nothing. You know that brassy glare of the sun rising that means always scorching dry heat? Think of it a hundred times worse than you've ever seen it! The country as far as you can look is like the floor of an enormous oven, with the sky, red and white-hot for a roof, and all the life there is, being slowly baked inside. The birds are getting scarce, and it seems too much trouble for those that are about to lift their voices. Except for a fiend of a laughing-jackass in a gum tree close by the veranda that drives me mad with his devilish chuckling.
Well, how do you think now, that her ladyship would have stood up against these sort of conditions? Many a time, walking up and down the veranda when I couldn't sleep, I've thanked my stars that there was no woman hanging on to me any more. Most of the men on the river have sent away their women—stockmen's wives and all. There was one here at the Bachelors' Quarters, but I packed her off before I went to Leichardt's Town.
I'm just waiting on to get Moongarr Bill's report of the country up north—how it stands the drought, and what the chances are for pushing out. As for the gold find—well, I'm not banking on that. As soon as I hear—or if I don't hear in the course of the next two or three weeks—I shall pull up stakes, and burn all my personal belongings, except what a pair of saddle bags will carry.
Before long, I'm going to begin packing Biddy's things. They'll be shipped off to her all right.
When the divorce business is over, I shall make new tracks, and you won't hear of me unless I come out on top. I've got a queer feeling inside me that I shall win through yet.
Well, I'm finished; and it's about time. I've run my pen over a good many sheets, and it has been a kind of relief—I began writing this about three weeks ago. Harry the Blower—that's the mailman—comes only once a month now, and not on time at that.
I suppose the drought will break sooner or later, and when it breaks, the Bank is certain to send up and take possession of what's left. So I'm a ruined man, any way.
Good-bye, Joan, old friend. I've written to the lawyer, and Biddy will be served with the papers soon after this reaches you. I'm not sending her any message. If she doesn't understand, there's no use in words—but YOU know this. She's been the one woman in the universe for me—and there will never be another.
He signed his name at the end of the letter; and that was all.