rries--the lash!
Jim had heard enough of the infamy of the system to understand, if not
the worst, sufficient to make his skin creep at the thought of it. He
realized to what state of heart and mind Ryder had been driven, knowing
how he himself had developed under the stress of comparatively trivial
wrongs, and the whole man ached with sympathy. It required a strong
effort to restrain his inclination to tears, a weakness of the flesh he
had surprised in himself before now.

And Ryder had suffered all this, knowing himself to be guiltless of the
crime of which he was convicted. Stony was there in his tent. If Jim had
known where to find his brother he would have gone to him in the morning,
prompted by the generous affection that had sprung in his heart, feeling
that Ryder might be won over by new friendships and new interests. It
seemed to him that the wholesome effects worked in his case might be
repeated in that of his brother, forgetting their disparity in years. The
change had come to him while he was yet little more than a boy; Ryder was
a man in middle life, and no longer capable of youth's saving
enthusiasms.

Jim was early for the appointment, but Ryder was already at the
rendezvous, seated on the log, smoking, and apparently deriving placid
enjoyment from his cigar. The young man's greeting was warm, but the
elder showed no emotion. If any liking for Jim existed in him it was
carefully hidden away. Throughout their previous meeting he had borne
himself with seriousness, as if something of importance to him were at
stake; to-night he was in a wholly different humour, more like the man
who had encountered Jim in Mary Kyley's bar.

'Are we to consider the relationship established?' he said.

'I am quite convinced,' answered Jim. 'I have not doubted it from the
moment you declared yourself.'

'You are much too confiding, my boy. As an impostor I might have gathered
all these details from the real Richard Done.'

'With what object?'

'Well, I have an object, an ulterior motive. I want you to share a large
fortune with me.'

Jim laughed. 'You may pick up a large family of brothers on those terms,'
he said.

'You will do. Is it a bargain?'

'What is this fortune? Where is it? How was it come by?'

'The fortune is mainly in virgin gold; it is in an untried alluvial
field.'

'If the field is untried, how do you know the gold is in it?'

'I put it there.'

Jim looked at Ryder sharply. 'You have not answ