The crowd moved a little, closer to him. There was no chance of making a break for it.
George Woods laughed.
"Course you can't, Jun!" he said. "Not on the Ridge, you can't manage your affairs and your mate's ... your way ... Not without a little helpful advice from the rest of us.... Sit down!"
Jun glanced about him again; then, realising the intention on every face, and something of the purpose at the back of it, he sat down again.
"Well, I'm jiggered!" he exclaimed. "I see—you believe old Olsen's story. That's about the strength of it. Never thought ... a kid, or a chicken, 'd believe that bloody yarn. Well, what's the advice ... boys? Let's have it, and be done with it!"
"We'll let bygones be bygones, Jun. We won't say anything about ... why," George remarked. "But the boys and I was just thinking it might be as well if you and Rum-Enough sort of shared up the goods now, and then ... if he doesn't want to go to Sydney same time as you, Jun, he can deal his goods here, or when he does go."
No one knew better than Jun the insult which all this seemingly good-natured talking covered. He knew that neither he, nor any other man, would have dared to suggest that Watty, or George, or Michael, were not to be trusted to deal for their mates, to the death even. But then he knew, too, they were to be trusted; that there was not money enough in the world to buy their loyalty to each other and to their mates, and that he could measure their suspicion of his good faith by his knowledge of himself. To play their game as they would have played it was the only thing for him to do, he recognised.
"Right!" he said, "I'm more than willing. In fact, I wouldn't have the thing on me mind—seein' the way you chaps 've taken it. But 'd like to know which one of you wouldn't 've done what I've done if Rum-Enough was your mate?"
Every man was uneasily conscious that Jun was right. Any one of them, if he had Paul for a mate, would have taken charge of the most valuable stones, in Paul's interest as well as his own. At the same time, every man felt pretty sure the thing was a horse of another colour where Jun was concerned.
"Which one of us," George Woods inquired, "if a mate'd been set on by a spieler in Sydney, would've let him stump his way to Brinarra and foot it out here ... like you let old Olsen?"