“Thank ye,” said Danny; “but I’m thinkin’ o’ startin’ at the other end. Shove ’em on ter Moody. He’ll never get a wife havin’ on’y had ten gels a’ready.”
“Revoke,” said Lou, from his corner, and the outsider stammered in helpless innocence.
Conlon winked at Gordon as he cast more wood on the fire. Lou’s methods were known in the township.
Randal dropped on the form beside Derrett, and spread his long hands to the blaze. They had been a gentleman’s hands before the nails broke and the joints coarsened by work. And Randal had been a gentleman before the life he chose had made his soul even as his hands. But the blackened hands and soul had pulled Mains out of more than one tight pinch when the snow was down on the sheep-country.
The air without rang with frost, and the eternal thump of the dredges a half-mile down the river sounded close to each man as the beating of his heart. The bar-parlour was hot, and gay with the fire-blaze. It smelt of the stables, and rank tobacco, and beer. A man who came quick-foot down the street to swing the side-door open, halted on the sill to gasp and to shout:
“Who’s in there behind that reek? Any chaps who can ride?
Derrett felt the quiver of the man beside him, and saw it flick to one and another
