“Ah!” said the other, half sadly (the desirableness of this had occurred to him before now); “but how are we to do that?” asked he, incredulously.  “The camp is choke-full of them.”

Robinson looked blacker, uglier and more in earnest.  So was his answer when it came.

“Make stealing death by the law.”

“The law!  What law?”

“Lynch!”

CHAPTER LX.

ABOUT a fortnight after Robinson’s return to the diggings two men were seated in a small room at Bevan’s store.  There was little risk of their being interrupted by any honest digger, for it was the middle of the day.

“I know that well enough,” growled the black-maned one, “everybody knows the lucky rip has got a heavier swag than ever, but we shan’t get it so cheap, if we do at all.”

“Why not?”

“He is on his guard now, night and day, and what is more he has got friends in the mine that would hang me or you either up to dry, if they but caught us looking too near his tent.”

“The ruffians.  Well, but if he has friends he has enemies.”

“Not so many; none that I know of but you and me.  I wonder what he has done to you?”

The other waived this question and replied:  “I have found two parties that hate him; two that came in last week.”

“Have you? then, if you are in earnest, make me acquainted with them, for I am weak-handed; I lost one of my pals yesterday.”

“Indeed! how?”

“They caught him at work and gave him a rap over the head with a spade.  The more ——­ fool he for being caught.  Here is to his memory.”

“Ugh! what, is he, is he—­”

“Dead as a herring.”

“Where shall we all go to?  What lawless fellows these diggers are.  I will bring you the men.”

For the last two months the serpentine man had wound in and out the camp, poking about for a villain of the darker sort as minutely as Diogenes did for an honest man, and dispensing liquor and watching looks and words.  He found rogues galore, and envious spirits that wished the friends ill, but none of them seemed game to risk their lives against two men, one of whom said openly he would kill any stranger he caught in his tent, and whom some fifty stout fellows called Captain Robinson, and were ready to take up his quarrel like fire.  But at last he fell in with two old lags, who had a deadly grudge against the captain, and a sovereign contempt for him into the bargain.  By the aid of liquor he wormed out their story.  This was the marrow of it:  The captain had been their pal, and, while they were all three cracking a crib, had with unexampled treachery betrayed them, and got them laid by the heels for nearly a year; in fact, if they had not broken prison they would not have been here now.  In short, in less than half an hour he returned with our old acquaintances, brutus and mephistopheles.