He had a fleshy face, and black beady eyes, which he fixed on Damer, who stood still, with a little, unpleasant smile.
"Come right in!" he said.
Damer smothered an anathema as he recognized the command in the tone.
"No," he said.

"If you don't mind, Mr.Hallam, I'll be getting on again." "Come in!" said Hallam, a trifle more sharply, but for just a moment Damer remained motionless.

A few steps would take him down the verandah stairway, and then the shadowy bush lay before him.

Had he had a horse, he would have obeyed the impulse which prompted him to avoid the encounter; but, as it happened, owing to the fact that Alton had met the rancher who would otherwise have lent him one, he had none.
So with evident unwillingness he came slowly forward, and dropping his bundles on the floor flung himself into a chair.
"Well," he said, "I'm here." Hallam, who had been watching him, nodded reflectively.

"I guess you didn't expect to find me, or you wouldn't have come," he said.