'I am not surprised. There is no difference in our faces but that which years have made.'
'It was in Melbourne on the night of my arrival. I was attacked in a bar by a man who mistook me for Solo.'
The brothers looked into each other's eyes for some little time, Jim anxiously, Ryder with no appearance of concern in his strong, handsome face.
'I am the man they call Solo.'
'Solo the robber!' Instinctively Jim had moved back from the other, but
Ryder took no notice of the action.
'My boy,' he said, 'there are two kinds of men—the active criminal and the passive. I am fairly active.'
'But the blind folly of it—here, where fortunes are made so easily!'
'Are they? You have had a bit of luck. There are thousands on the rushes who do not make tucker. In any case I could not afford to place myself directly under the supervision of the troopers. Not that I had any weak desire to earn an honest living, by the way.'
'What are you hoping for? Where is it all leading?' Jim felt an emotion of despair.
'Perhaps you would rather hear no more to-night.'