A or’nary good man wud ’a’got the neck broke off of him.”
Lou loosed his belt, and brought it down on the rump. He slung past them as a bullet from the rifle, and headed the rush on the lip of the bush. Then the grey dawn was pin-pricked by shouts and waving arms and the hiss and crackle of whips. The roar and the rain-beat dazed and cowed the mob. The corners were turned in, each on each, and Lou belted the last-comer into the yard with his strap. Then he came over the fence with his voice too soft.
“Where is Buck?” he said.
Danny sniggered, carrying a drowned boot in either hand.
“Where wud he be like ter be but promenadin’ inter the bush, an’ stayin’ there? He’s permiskious enough ter see as we ain’t pleased wi’ him, if he is dotty.”
Douglas swept up an armful of dead manuka and led the way to the hut. Here, while the water ran off them, the boys turned about and about before the fire that raged up the tin chimney to the dawn-sky, and Randal extracted a mic-a-mic thorn from Danny’s big toe to the tune of a half-hundred cheerful jokes. Lou fed the fire just below the swinging billy, and once he said:
“Buck will go home, I suppose. He knows
