'You did? Ryder was hunting Stony on Diamond Gully.'
'He's gettin' pretty warm, then. Stony's here too. That's his tent above the bend to the left. He's a hatter, an' works a lone hand in the shallow ground.'
'Then trouble's brewing for Mr. Stony.'
'You seemed to feel for him. Better drop him the word, hadn't you?'
'No. My sympathies are with the other man, and as he means something short of manslaughter, Stony can take his chances.'
It was not long after this that Jim encountered Stony in Mary Kyley's tent. He was drinking alone, and drinking with the feverish haste of a man who deliberately seeks intoxication. He was more tremulous than when Done first met him, and his face had the colour, and looked as if it might have the consistency, of putty. The man was an instinctive hater: he lived alone, worked alone, and desired no companionship. Previous to the gold discoveries he had served for years in the capacity of shepherd on one of the big Australian sheep-runs, and had lived cut off from communion with his kind in the great lone land, absorbing into his blood the spirit of solitude that broods in the Bush and in time robs man of his gregarious impulses.
Jim had been in the shanty about an hour, and was standing with his back to the counter; Stony was sitting in the corner, his hands clasped between his knees, his eyes fixed upon the floor, unconscious of his surroundings, when the flap of the tent was lifted, and Ryder stepped in, running a keen, searching eye over the company. Jim saw him start as his gaze encountered Stony. He paused for a moment, and then slipped back into darkness, dropping the tent-door after him. Done understood his intention. 'He will wait,' he said to himself, and determined to watch events. Ryder had awakened in him an extraordinary interest.
Stony sat in a state of abstraction for close upon half an hour, and when he arose and left the place Jim followed him. The night was dark, and Stony had disappeared, but the young man walked quietly in the direction of the hatter's camp. He could see nothing of either man, and had decided that he was mistaken regarding Ryder's intention, when a low but blood-chilling sound—the noise made by a man fighting against strangulation—broke upon his ear. He had been seeking for this, but the shock unnerved him for a moment.
XIII
PEERING through the darkness, Done discovered the shadowy figures of two men. The figures were rigid upon the ground. There was no further sound. The young man approached closely and stood by Ryder, dropping his hand upon his shoulder. There was just light enough for him to see a revolver snatched from the belt, or a movement of such suggestiveness, but he fastened on that right arm with a grip to which it succumbed instantly.