Cookie. He ain’t had a wash this week. Or Kiliat cud do wi’ some drownin’.”
Kiliat was manager of the Lion Hydraulic Sluicing Company, with Ormond to do the work. He was known through the land as a fool, and the Packer, who owned his own private one-horse claim next door, wept when he told of Ormond’s patient mending of pipes and patching up of trestles.
“That Comp’ny’s suckin’ the Lion dry,” he said. “With Kiliat to show ’em the way. An’ cuttin’ down wages too, ain’t they, Gordon?"
“You mind yer bloomin’ business,” said Gordon, suddenly hostile.
The Packer scratched his throat with a dirty finger-nail.
“Never ’ave I called a man my master,” he said, in the pride of the free.
Randal crossed the flagged verandah, and knocked on the door of the man he called master.
“Jack told me at the stable that you wanted to see me,” he said.
Scannell pushed his chair back from the desk, and looked at Randal straightly. Few could tell when the knife was in his flesh, for he did not flinch from it.
“They tell me you have saved my son’s life. I—thank you, Randal.”
Randal was yet gentleman enough to flush
