Now," said I, "Mrs.Hawker, will you tell me what has become of your old servant, Lee?
I have reasons for asking." "He is in my service still," she said; "as useful and faithful as ever.
At present he is away at a little hut in the ranges, looking after our ewes." "Who is with him ?" I asked.
"Well, he has got a new hand with him, a man who came about a month or so ago, and stayed about splitting wood.

I fancy I heard Lee remark that he had known him before.

However, when Lee had to go to the ranges, he wanted a hut-keeper; so this man went up with him." "What sort of a looking man was he ?" "Oh, a rather large man, red-haired, much pitted with the small-pox." All this made me uneasy.

I had asked these questions, by the advice of Dick, and, from Mrs.Hawker's description tallying so well with his, I had little doubt that another of the escaped gang was living actually in her service, alone too, in the hut with Lee.
The day that we went to Mirngish, the circumstances I am about to relate took place in Lee's hut, a lonely spot, eight miles from the home station, towards the mountain, and situated in a dense dark stringy bark forest--a wild desolate spot, even as it was that afternoon, with the parrots chattering and whistling around it, and the bright winter's sun lighting up the green tree-tops.
Lee was away, and the hut-keeper was the only living soul about the place.

He had just made some bread, and, having carried out his camp-oven to cool, was sitting on the bench in the sun, lazily, thinking what he would do next.
He was a long, rather powerfully-built man, and seemed at first sight, merely a sleepy half-witted fellow, but at a second glance you might perceive that there was a good deal of cunning, and some ferocity in his face.