pipe. “See me talkin’ ter Mrs. Blaine over there? Two on ’em got waltzin’ round her back-yard, an’ I’m goffered ef she didn’t go fur ’em proper wi’ the fryin’-pan. Clouted ’em over the head all seraphic, she did.”
“Jimmie cud ’a’ done well wi’ some o’ his mother’s spare pluck,” said Hynes. “An’ what’ll he be sayin’ ’bout old Buggy, I wonder?”
Danny sucked fire into his pipe, and killed the match between slow fingers.
“Devil knows,” he said soberly. “I’m conducin’ as Jimmie don’t—ner won’t yet a bit. He’s been cleanin’ up the last o’ the rabbitin’ fur Robertson back o’ All Alone sence Scannell sacked him. ’Tain’t much news he’ll be gittin’ there ’cept what the wekas an’ keas has on tap.”
“Rum thing o’ Ted Douglas ter git his mate sacked that a-way,” said Pavit. “I can’t understand it myself.”
Pavit was a muddy dredge-hand from the Glory, and he sat the rail with his long hip-boots swinging, and the yellow clay caked on his cap. Danny turned on him fiercely.
“Never s’posed yer cud! It takes a man ter understan’ a man. What’d Ted hev done wi’ Lou and Scott an’ them rotters ef he hadn’t played the game? Can ye consplain that, now?”
“Jimmie was the wust rotter o’ the lot, any-
