Ryder lay with his revolver by his side.  He knew perfectly that he might be engaged in a life or death struggle at any moment, and was prepared to die by his own hand the instant the fight became hopeless.

’Go, Yarra; pick up his track; find which way he has gone; come back one minute.’

He knew there was no occasion to warn the half-caste, in whom the instincts of his mother’s people were paramount.  Yarra was a child of the Bush; nothing would escape his eye or his ear, and at the same time he would be as swift and as secret as a snake.

While the boy was away Ryder wrote a note in pencil addressed to Lucy Woodrow.  Yarra was back within five minutes.

’Him Boss belonga me all right.  Him run longa gully, catch up horse by ole man blackbutt, ride longa gorge same debble chase him,’ reported the half-caste.

‘Right, right!  Yarra plurry fine feller!’ said Ryder.  ’Now we go up over small spur, down by gorge, sit down little stone cave near big splash.  Pretty quick you come back, catch Wallaroo, lead him down to the gorge along down the creek.  Make a track by the bank some time, turn him in pool where black fish sit down, and ride back up creek again, and tie horse up by big rock same monkey bear.  Then to-night you creep down by Boobyalla, knock on Miss Lucy’s window, gib Miss Lucy this letter.  No one else must see.  If Miss Lucy say yes, when sun jumps up to-morrow you take Wallaroo down by wattle track, gib her horse, come back sit down by me.  Yarra catch hold all that?’

Yarra nodded brightly.  ‘My word, mine know him all right,’ he said.

‘Yarra always good friend by me?’

‘My word!’

The climb over the spur that divided the outlaw’s first retreat from the gorge proved a terrible task for the wounded man.  For some distance the boy followed him, obliterating his tracks; but before the journey was half completed Ryder required all the assistance the half-caste could give him, and he reached the small cave in the side of the gorge, about a mile and a half from its entrance, in an exhausted and feverish condition.  There Yarra gave him drink, and, having made him a comfortable bed, left him with a revolver by his side, and returned for Wallaroo and Ryder’s belongings.  The boy followed the instructions he had received faithfully, and was with the outlaw again before sundown, watching over him with an interest he had never before felt in any human creature.  Ryder knew now that his life depended upon the boy’s fidelity, and that there was only one other person in the world upon whom he could rely in his extremity—­Jim Done.