‘Yes,’ said the girl quietly, and stepped from the door to make way for him.

Downy entered and commenced his search at once.  He examined the whole place minutely, foolishly it seemed to Christina, who stood by the door apparently impassive but following all his movements with her eyes.  He was particularly careful in overhauling a coat that her father had worn, and having gone through the three rooms he walked out and round the house.  There was no place near where a man might hide but in the tank, and that was full of water, as he cautiously noted.  He faced Christina for a moment, as if with the intention of questioning her, but changed his mind, wished her ‘Good day,’ and moved off.

Up to six o’clock next day nothing had been heard of Shine; he had disappeared in a most astonishing manner.  The police of the whole country were alert to capture him, and it was thought that escape for him was impossible, if only on account of his physical peculiarities, which should have made him a marked man anywhere in Victoria or in either of the neighbouring provinces.  Sergeant Monk and several troopers were stationed at Waddy, and were kept busy hunting in the old mines and all the nooks and corners of the district.  Harry Hardy joined in the hunt throughout Tuesday.  He had a feverish desire for employment—­occupation for his mind which, in spite of the efforts he made to dwell upon the villainies of Ephraim Shine and the wrong he had done Frank, and the good reasons he had to hate him, would revert again and again to Christina; and then a wish, a cowardly wish, traitorous to his brother, cruel to his mother, and false to himself, stole into his heart, and he felt for one burning moment a hope that the searcher might escape for her sake, for the sake of sweet Chris, whose victory over him he acknowledged and nursed in secret with a wealth of feeling that amazed him, with a passion he had never dreamed himself capable of.  He fought this wish furiously, as if it had been a tangible thing:  grappling with it, choking it in his heart, and stirring up in his soul a wilder hatred for his enemy.

Harry saw Chris for a moment on the morning after the arrest of Joe Rogers; the change in her startled him, his love flamed up, and pity tore at his heart strings.  His triumph must mean suffering and shame for her.  Had he stood alone he would ten thousand times rather have borne what misfortune might have fallen to his lot than see her shamed and sorrowing.  It was thoughts like these that rose up to make him his brother’s enemy, and they were conquered in sweat and agony; and since his loyalty to his own kin could only be maintained at a fever heat, he stood forth as the most bitter and implacable foe of Ephraim Shine.

Coming from Mrs. Hardy’s gate on that night at about nine o’clock, Dick Haddon collided with a breathless boy running at top speed in the direction of the Drovers’ Arms, and the two went down together.  When Dick had quite recovered he recognised the other, whom he had gripped with ’vengeful intentions, as Billy Peterson.