Each of the men offered to go with him, but he declined their services.

"There is nothing to do," said he, "and nobody to catch; and if the fire is burning, it must burn." So he went alone.
The words that he had uttered among his men had not been lightly spoken.

He had begun to perceive that life would be very hard to him in his present position, or perhaps altogether impossible, as long as he was at enmity with all those around him.

Old squatters whom he knew, respectable men who had been in the colony before he was born, had advised him to be on good terms with the Brownbies.

"You needn't ask them to your house, or go to them, but just soft-sawder them when yon meet," an old gentleman had said to him.