throughout the room. It was the muscles of the saddle-bred tightening unconsciously, to strike them out from loafer, and dredge-hand, and ganger.
“’Bout half on us,” said Douglas. “What’s the row, Murray?”
Murray’s blue uniform and clean-cut face showed under the door-lamp. He had left an English University for love of adventure; and, from cap-peak to spurred heel, all the district knew him for the honourable plucky gentleman the Old World breeds, and sometimes sends us.
“Young Scannell’s gone up the Changing and into the hills. I’ll want all of you I can get to find him.”
Randal sprang up with an oath as Conlon cried:
“Drunk again, is he?”
“I believe you! Rouse up, you fellows. Who’s coming?”
Tod scratched his nose, answering for them all, dubiously.
“Ah, then, man dear, wouldn’t it be betther for the boys to let him go streelin’ away to the ind of the world and beyant it, sure?”
“Come out of that, you lazy beggar, before I bring you by the scruff.”
Then, as the warmth held the men still in idleness, Murray’s voice changed, and cut with a sudden incisiveness. “Is it a pack of cowards I’m calling on in here?”
