But this did not suit Benito’s purpose.  “I must go alone,” he said emphatically.

The other eyed him with suspicion.  “Then find him alone,” he countered, sullenly.  But a moment later he was plucking at Benito’s elbow.  “What’s it all abaout, this ’ere news?  Cawn’t ye tell a fellow?  Give me an inklin’; trust me and I’ll trust you; that’s business.”

Benito hesitated.  “It’s about the ranch,” he returned at a venture.

“Ow, the rawnch.  Well, you needn’t ’ave been so bloody sly about it.  Alec isn’t worried much abaout the rawnch.  ’E’s bigger fish to fry.  But you can see ’im if you wants.  ’E’s at the Broken Bottle Tavern up in Sydney Town.”

They had a drink together; then Benito parted from his informant, ruminating over what the little man, so palpably a “Sydney Duck,” had told him.

Benito surveyed his reflection in a glass.  In his rain-bedraggled attire he might pass for one of the Sydney Ducks himself.  His boots were splashed with mud, his scrape wrinkled and formless.  He pulled the dripping hat into a disheveled slouch, low down on his forehead.  McTurpin had not seen him with a beard, had failed to recognize him at the polling station.  Benito decided to risk it.

* * * * *

One of the largest and most pretentious of Sydney Town’s “pubs,” or taverns, was The Broken Bottle, kept by a former English pugilist from Botany Bay.  He was known as Bruiser Jake, could neither read nor write and was shaped very much like a log, his neck being as large as his head.  It was said that the Australian authorities had tried to hang him several times, but failed because the noose slipped over his chin and ears, refusing its usual function.  So he finally had been given a “ticket of leave” and had come to California.  Curiously enough the Bruiser never drank.  He prided himself on his sobriety and the great strength of his massive hands in which he could squeeze the water out of a potato.  Ordinarily he was not quarrelsome, though he fought like a tiger when aroused.

Benito found this worthy behind his bar and asked for a drink of English ale, a passable quality of which was served in the original imported bottles at most public houses.

The Bruiser watched him furtively with little piglike eyes.  “And who might ye be, stranger?” he asked when Benito set down his glass.

“’Awkins—­that’s as good a nyme as another,” said Benito, essaying the cockney speech.  “And what ye daon’t know won’t ’urt you, my friend.”  He threw down a silver piece, took the bottle and glass with him and sat down at a table near the corner.  Hard by he had glimpsed the familiar broad back of McTurpin.

At first the half-whispered converse of the trio at the adjoining table was incomprehensible to his ears, but after a time he caught words, phrases, sentences.

First the word “squatters” reached him, several times repeated; then, “at Rincon.”  Finally, “the best lots in the city can be held.”