Deringham had faced more than one crisis in the past, and the difference in his pose might not have attracted a stranger’s notice, though it was evident to his daughter that something had troubled him.  Why he should be so disturbed by the news of Alton’s condition she could not quite see, but that appeared of the less importance, because she was endeavouring to evade the question why the telegram should also have caused her a curious consternation.  He was a half-taught rancher, and she had been accustomed to the homage of men of mark and polish in England—­but it was with something approaching dismay she heard that the man who had supplanted her father was, though she could scarcely contemplate the possibility, dying.

In the meanwhile Deringham walked into the bar, and leaned somewhat heavily upon the counter as he asked for a glass of brandy.  He spilled a little of it, and the steward, who saw that his fingers shook, glanced at him curiously as he set it down.

“I guess that will fix you, sir,” he said.  “You’re not feeling well?”

Deringham made a little gesture of assent, and the man drew him out a chair.  “That is good brandy,” he said.  “You’d better sit down there quietly and have another.  Here’s The Colonist.  They’ve got that fellow up at Slocane, but one feels sorry the boys didn’t get hold of him.  Hanging’s not much use for that kind of man.”

Deringham’s fingers trembled as he thrust the journal aside, but his voice was even.  “The brandy is rather better than any I’ve had of late,” he said.  “You can give me another glass of it.”

For at least ten minutes he lay somewhat limply in the chair, and his reflections were not pleasant.  He had speculated with another man’s money and lost most of it, as well as profited by several transactions which were little better than a swindle; but that was as far as he had gone hitherto, and he had in a curious fashion, retained through it all a measure of inherited pride.  Now, however, the disguise was for a moment torn aside, and he saw himself as he was, a thief and a miscreant, no better than the brutish bushman who had slain his sick kinsman for a hundred dollars.  There was, as he had read already, nothing to redeem the sordid, cowardly treachery of that crime.

Deringham was, however, proficient at finding excuses for himself and shutting his eyes to unpleasant facts, and the phase commenced to pass.  He had, he recollected, plainly stated that he merely desired Alton to be detained a little amidst the ranges, and it became evident to him that what had happened was the result of Hallam’s villainy.  Hallam had injured him as well as Alton, while there was no controverting the fact that the rancher’s decease would relieve him of a vast anxiety, and his first indignation against Hallam also melted when he rose composedly from the chair.  He felt that Seaforth expected something of him, and it appeared advisable to consider what could be done, while a project already commended itself to him.  In another five minutes he had rejoined his daughter, looking more like the man who urbanely presided over the not always contented shareholders’ meetings.  He realized, however, that he had a slightly difficult task before him.