The party agreed that the wisest course would be to await the progress of events, watch his every movement, and let him see that they were prepared to sell their lives dearly, if driven to do so. The stranger seemed to have an unlimited supply of money, and to be generous about it, paying his way freely. He took at once to my brother, and the liking was mutual; in diggers’ parlance, they became mates, chummed, walked, and smoked together. My brother found him a well-informed, agreeable companion, a vast improvement on their rough associates; and he seemed thoroughly to enjoy the society of the jovial young Irish gentleman. A sincere friendship sprung up between them, notwithstanding the disparity in years. The other members of the party became very anxious, fearing the man would take advantage of my brother’s unsuspicious, trusting nature to obtain information that would be useful to him when forming his plans for the attack which was hourly expected, in fact looked upon as imminent. Nor were their fears allayed when, after a little, he would leave the beaten track and walk into the bush, remaining away for hours, and returning at the most unexpected times and places; showing a thorough knowledge of the bush and all its intricacies and short-cuts, quite inconsistent with the story he had told on joining. One thing struck my brother as strange, but without exciting any suspicion on his part. When walking together, he would suddenly stand, become quite excited, and say: ‘Oh, it was here such an outrage occurred.’ ‘It was on the spot on which we are standing that the escort was shot down and a large consignment of gold carried off. They did fight like demons.’ He seemed to take the greatest pleasure in giving minute details of the different outrages as they had occurred, and always spoke as if he had been an eye-witness. But so thorough was my brother’s belief in his new friend, that even this did not shake his faith. When within a few days of the journey’s end, the stranger suddenly and quite unexpectedly declared his intention of parting company. He offered no explanation as to his reason for doing so, though all through he had seemed anxious to impress it on them that he intended to go the entire way to the diggings with them. No questions were asked. After a general and hearty leave-taking, which, however, did not inspire much confidence, as they were still within range of a possible attack, he asked my brother to take a last walk with him, and led the way into the bush farther than he had ever brought him before, and a long distance from the beaten track. The first words the stranger said were: ‘Mate, don’t you carry a revolver?’ The answer was: ‘Yes, and a first-class one. Not such as is got out here. I brought it from home.’