brought along his whip they’d have used it.”
Then he went out and shut the door.
Randal had neither hate nor pity for his kind. He saw the justice in this, and stood by in the cold bright-starred night; but he gave no help, nor yet any hindrance. Sheer behind the whare the bush rose up to the sky. The babble of a creek two yards off mixed with the distant roar of the shingle river and the low brush of horses cropping long grass. The little sod whare was sallow in the faint light. Each step and word rang in the frosty air. But there was no mercy for Jimmie in the night, nor in the faces and the quick hands about him.
Within, Ted Douglas stood against the narrow chimney-shelf, his head down on his arms. Originally, blanket-tossing is a school-boy trick; but the fun goes out of it very swiftly when a man is delivered to the punishment. Each soul is made dual that it may understand other souls if it will; and if the man in Ted Douglas stood firm for the honour of Mains, the woman in him shook at foreknowledge of Jimmie’s pain. Through the shut door came the shout of the old-time furmula. First Scott’s voice, loud and clear:
“Who lost twenty head o’ cattle fur Scannell?”
