Steve can go to the logging, and I’ll put Pug and Webber on felling. Tod, you’d best take the cross-out. Mair will be your mate. He can wind any man in camp.”
“Sure then there’s a bloomin’ knock-out waitin’ for him, the gossoon,” said Tod joyously. “For there is no toight-lacin’ wid Scannell’s men at all, at all.”
Then Purdey glanced at Randal’s sullen jaws and eyes, and swallowed a smile. Randal would work like a demon while this mood held him.
“Felling for you, too,” he said. “And you’ll find some tough stuff to bite on.” He slid his hands in his trousers-pockets, looking on them with the bland grin of a child.
“I believe I saw some of you in that row in the township last month,” he said. “You take your chances here, you know. I sack the first man who complains.”
He turned into his hut, and Tod wriggled with thankful joy.
“Did I not tell ye we wud turn the Camp insoide out?” he cried. “Four of us, wid fishts all, and Lou havin’ science to top up wid. Come on wid ye, now, whoile we give thim good-mornin’.”
But the belt-rope of work ran rapid and unbroken on Purdey’s Camp. Purdey’s hand swayed each separate lever. At the tram-head the gangs felt it, where they wrought with the
