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He had told her of the incident at the trestle, and the hatred now boiling in the breasts of the bohunks. But of the scene in Torrance's shack, of Sergeant Mahon, he had not said a word; he felt he dare not. That the Sergeant should be there oppressed and threatened him.
He was lifted from his feet, his head still in chancery and his mouth closed. He could hear the meeting breaking up, the crunching passage of the silent bohunks returning to the camp. Suddenly he was dropped, and a shadow faded noiselessly into the other shadows of night. "Mavy!" he called in a low voice. "Mavy!" Only two dull taps came back to him from the shadows.
Tressa herself settled the question: "I'm not going." "Send her out of the country for a few filthy bohunks!" sputtered her father. He spat into the sawdust box and crammed a charge of tobacco into his pipe with his uninjured hand, though the pain of holding the pipe in his left hand made him wince. "I won't recognise them by so much as a wink.
"You'se the stillest white man I ever see. I'se callin' you Still Jim in my mind. Pretty quick whites and colored folks can't get no jobs no more in this country. Just Bohunks and Wops and Ginnies. Can you watch the drill one minute while I gits a drink?" Jim nodded and glanced up at the red spider web that was dotted clear to the eighteenth floor with black dots of workmen.
Was a big attack forming? Did the Indian see some threat of which those in the shack were unaware? Mahon issued sharp orders for increased vigilance. But why shoot in that direction to ward off concentrated attack? The Indian's bullets continued to pour along the edge of the forest. Mahon saw the idea. For some reason the bohunks were being driven temporarily to cover. Something
His reward was unexpected and unsought it had no connection whatever with the Indian. He discovered that the bohunks were meeting in their hundreds under cover of the darkness. To satisfy himself that an outside menace was not added to the perils surrounding the trestle, Mahon took to inspecting the camp from hiding whenever he came on one of these gatherings.
He saw the quiver run through it felt it in his own body heard the creaking of ropes and blots, and there flashed through him a horror that he had not provided for a strain like that. When the trestle held its place, a great surge of pride and joy swept over him, but his knees were trembling. When his eyes returned to earth, the bohunks were in flight, almost to a man, though danger was past.
And run the damn thing out here right away and show me how it works, and how often you gotta wind it and when. Lucky I didn't bring no passengers down I was runnin' empty. But I gotta take back a load of Bohunks to the Bluebird this afternoon, and my stage, she's a total wreck. I'll sign papers to-night if you got any to sign."
"I sure dosed her fer fair up thar among them bohunks, an' she's hangin' her head a bit. But she's the same ole gal, ain't yuh, Whiskers?" He whistled again. The pinto sank to the ground and lay as motionless as the rocks about. "Ain't lost a trick, not a dang one. An' she knows yuh, Boy. Yuh ain't changed not 's much as me. . . . But I'm sure the same old Blue Pete."
But the dang thing don't seem to work like a loco'ed cayuse. Anyway it was a job. Them bohunks is getting' to roamin' about real annoyin', an' Koppy wust of all." "Who was shooting just before you gave me the signal?" "The bohunks, out after sparrow pie fer supper, I guess," he lied placidly, "ur larnin' which end a gun fires at. It's real dangerous in the bush these days.
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