'My God!' groaned out Lance, as his face flushed high, and then grew pale to the lips. 'This is more than I could have hoped for. Now look here, Coke,' and he turned upon the old man with a subdued wrath in every look and tone that, fearless as he was, awed the ruffianly elder. 'This Trevenna did me the worst wrong that one man can do another. Through his villainy I have been chained, starved, gaoled, treated like a dog--falsely accused, too, if ever man was. If I shoot the infernal hound as he pulls up his horse, I should be doing a good deed. If I don't, it is only that he may feel that, man to man, I am his master, and the punishment I intend to give him will not be so soon over. But if you interfere, by word or deed, by God! I'll shoot the pair of you like dogs.' He touched his pistol as the last words came from his lips in low concentrated tones. His chest heaved, his hands were clenched until the muscles in his bare arms stood out like cordage, and the lurid fire in his deep-set eyes glowed as though ready to leap forth with volcanic flame. The resistless force of long-repressed passion asserted itself at this supreme moment. The crafty veteran recognised the necessity of neutrality, and assumed his position with promptitude. 'Larry must take his chance. It's dashed little I care which way it goes. I'll see fair play, anyhow.' There was little time to say more. The horseman had crossed the creek and, riding at a hand-gallop, pulled up at the door, throwing his bridle-reins, stock-rider fashion, on the ground, and leaving the hard-ridden hackney, a grand three-parts bred animal, to recover his wind and graze on the green tussock grass till he should need him. Without apparently taking notice of the stranger who, in ordinary miner's garb, stood by the old man,--most probably taking him for a wandering prospector or hard-up 'hatter,'--he called out, advancing the while-- 'I say, old King of the Duffers, do you know there's half-a-dozen chaps from Monaro waiting for you at Dobbs' Hole? They've a stunning lot of nags with them, so you'd better scratch all you know and get there before dark. Who's this cove? Perhaps he'll give us a hand? I must have a pot of tea first, though.' He moved towards the hut door, near which Lance and the old man were standing. Lance stepped forward. 'So we meet again, Lawrence Trevenna?' Trevenna was no coward. Still the sudden apparition of a deadly enemy--as if he had arisen from the earth--would disturb the equilibrium of most men. He started back. But a life filled with risk and imminent peril had schooled his nerves. He smiled, as if in apparent good-fellowship. 'By Jove! So it's _you_, Trevanion? Who'd have thought of seeing you here? Well, you've slipped the clinks, it seems. I was always dashed sorry you got into that scrape so deep. You'd better go shares with Coke and the rest of us in this lay. There's money in it--pots and pots of it.'