Ah Sook’s purchase of a pistol turns his declared intention to kill Francis Carver into an immediate, traceable act. Walter Moody warns him that killing Carver will bring a hanging and that he cannot expect a fair trial; Ah Sook accepts both consequences without apparent distress. By the time the purchase becomes the subject of a manhunt, he has a loaded Kerr Patent and a plan to reach Carver at the Crown Hotel that night. The episode’s tension comes from the collision of two kinds of knowledge: Shepard’s network is closing around the armed man, while Moody’s confidence has given Ah Sook information about Carver that the pursuit does not erase.

The Decision and Moody’s Warning

As Ah Sook packs his possessions into his swag and sits to lace his boots, Moody can no longer endure the prospect of what he is planning. He tells Ah Sook that if he takes Carver’s life, he will be hanged, regardless of the provocation. He adds that the trial will not be fair to him. Ah Sook acknowledges the danger and the injustice, but neither changes his resolve. The exchange makes the decision unusually explicit before the weapon is bought. When Moody asks whether he means to shoot Carver, Ah Sook confirms that he does; when asked when, he names that night and the Crown Hotel. His plan has a place and a deadline. He then probes beneath earth covering the previous night’s embers and uses a stick to lever out a small soot-blackened tin tea caddy. It is still hot enough that he wraps his sleeve around his hand before picking it up. The caddy’s presence among his possessions gives the scene a physical focus, but the evidence does not identify its contents.

Choosing and Buying the Pistol

Ah Sook had first intended to visit Tiegreen’s Hardware and Supply. Its location beside the Palace Hotel made it convenient, and he believed the shopkeeper was sympathetic to Chinese men. He planned to ask for the pistol to be loaded in the store so he could carry out the deed the same day. He had never fired a pistol, though he understood its basic design and assumed that using one would not require much practice. Moody redirects him to an outfitters’ warehouse on Camp-street, beside the Deutsches Gasthaus. The sign has not yet been painted, but Moody identifies the proprietors as Brunton, Solomon & Barnes and specifies the weapon: a Kerr Patent, a British military pistol that should cost exactly five pounds. His advice is practical and exact, including a warning not to accept another weapon or pay more. Ah Sook looks at the gold in his purse, repeats the model and street to remember them, and thanks Moody. He had been quoted twice that price elsewhere. The purchase is reported as a five-pound payment in a paper note, with the pistol loaded in the shop by Barnes on Ah Sook’s behalf. This detail makes the transaction both ready for use and easy to recount. Ah Sook’s insistence on the exact price, combined with his request that the weapon be loaded, attracts attention rather than securing the quiet start he needs. Moody had cautioned him that a pistol was not merely a piece of hardware: the choice of weapon mattered because an attempted killing that failed to kill would not accomplish his purpose.

The Purchase Becomes a Manhunt

Shepard learns of the sale through Everard, a young man who recalls that Shepard had asked months earlier for a watch to be kept on a particular Chinese man. Everard cannot say whether the purchaser is the man Shepard sought, but he reports the sale promptly: Barnes has sold a Kerr Patent to a Chinese buyer that morning. He also passes on the revealing particulars. The buyer would not pay more than five pounds and had the pistol loaded at the shop. Shepard treats the report as grounds to act. He instructs Everard to return to Hokitika and tell people to alert him if they see a Chinese man called Sook, also known as Johnny Sook, anywhere in town. He tells Everard not to announce a reward, while also not denying one if asked. When Everard asks what should happen if he finds Ah Sook, Shepard says he will turn a blind eye to the method of apprehension if it can be done without much fuss. The instruction places the hunt in a morally compromised space: Shepard wants Ah Sook captured, but leaves the means deliberately unspecified. Shepard also turns the report toward Carver. Everard recognizes Carver by the scar on his face and is told to find him at the Palace Hotel, repeat what he has just reported, and tell him to buckle on his holsters. Everard asks whether Carver is Shepard’s deputy; Shepard answers that he has no deputy. The exchange does not formally appoint Carver, but it ensures that the intended target receives warning as the search begins.

Hiding in Hokitika

After buying the pistol, Ah Sook goes into hiding. The shopkeeper’s suspicion has been plain: he watched Ah Sook leave, arms folded, and scowled after him. Ah Sook expects the unusual purchase to become town gossip quickly. He has little reason to trust anyone who might shelter him. He will not ask Anna for help, no longer trusts Mannering, is not on speaking terms with the other men from the Crown Hotel council, and knows Ah Quee is away digging at Kaniere. Even paying in advance for a room at a disreputable hotel would not guarantee that its proprietors would keep his presence secret. Instead, he chooses an alley running between Revell-street and Tancred-street, a central passage behind warehouses, hotels, and cabins that tradesmen and penny-postmen use only intermittently. Behind a wine and spirit merchant’s allotment, a sheet of corrugated iron propped against an outhouse forms a lean-to. A flax bush screens it from the alley, and an outhouse pump shields it from the warehouse. Ah Sook crawls into the triangular space and sits cross-legged. The hiding place depends not on an ally’s protection but on concealment among the town’s back lots.

Warning, Advantage, and Suspense

Ah Sook has been there for three hours when Everard runs along Revell-street announcing that Shepard has taken out a warrant for a Chinese man’s arrest. The news confirms that the authorities have acted and that Carver will have been warned. Yet Ah Sook believes he retains an advantage: Moody’s confidence has told him exactly where and when to find Carver. The warrant has not yet led to his arrest, and Shepard’s public search has not removed the information that makes the planned encounter possible. The episode therefore ends with pursuit underway but its outcome unsettled. The pistol purchase has exposed Ah Sook to surveillance; the public call for sightings narrows his freedom to move; and the warning to Carver makes the intended meeting more dangerous. At the same time, Ah Sook’s concealed position and private knowledge preserve his initiative for the moment. His slight smile before closing his eyes registers neither surrender nor safety: the manhunt has begun, but the promised confrontation at the Crown Hotel remains ahead.