He did not want to read, but could not sleep, although he was very tired, and felt he must have some relief from his anxious thoughts.

The newspaper was a _Colonist_ that had left Victoria some days before, and he read it methodically from the first column, trying to fix his attention on things that had happened in remote mining settlements and market reports.

His efforts were mechanical, but he long afterwards remembered what he read and how he dully followed the arguments in an article on political reform.

Indeed, when he saw the _Colonist_ his imagination carried him back to the log-walled hut, and he felt something of the dazed hopelessness that blunted his senses then.
In the meantime, Charnock, half asleep, lounged with his legs stretched out to the fire.

The logs snapped and a fitful wind stirred the tops of the pines.