'No.' She repeated the word quite mechanically. 'No, no!'
Done returned to his brother. He lifted the body into the shade, and composed the limbs, and then seated himself and gave his mind over to bitter reflection. Ryder's face exerted a strong influence upon him. In death it had assumed a delicacy almost effeminate. It was the face of a saint and an ascetic. What was most evil in him had been grown in the forcing-house of vice and crime society had set up, and for being the thing it had made him society had butchered him like a mad dog. Jim recognised Monkey Mack only as the instrument of society. His logic may not have been perfect: his mind was in no state to deal with ethical nuances; he saw only the ruined life, remembered what Ryder had endured, and, above all, that he had been an innocent man, crushed, tortured, brutalized into an enemy of the law and the existing order. He felt himself capable of taking up his brother's fight. In his heart he was resolved to seek out Macdougal and kill him. That much must be done. He never questioned his capability for murder, and it is probable that had the chance come to him in cold blood his spirit would have failed him.
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Yarra returned with pick and shovel, and Jim had already selected the spot for Ryder's resting-place, beside a great boulder above the waterfall. There he started to dig the grave.
'Him brother belonga you?' asked Yarra.
'Yes,' said Jim.
'Good feller,' continued Yarra, and his black eyes gleamed maliciously. 'Boss belonga me kill him. You kill mine Boss?' Perhaps it was the remembrance of the many kicks and cuts he had received at the hands of Monkey Mack that inspired the impish eagerness in Yarra's face, perhaps his affection for the dead man moved him.
Jim Done looked at the boy curiously. 'Boss belonga you sit down by
Boobyalla?' he asked.
Yarra shook his head. 'No fear,' he said. 'Yarra stop 'way pretty quick when Boss bin there.'
'Suppose Yarra catch up track of Boss belonga him, come back when sun jump up, tell me.'
'My word! Budgery that! Mine tink it Boss yabber-yabber longa trooper.'