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"I'll get a blanket," Bill said, rising. "There come the men! That you, Ian?" The smith and a crowd of pale faces crashed up the stairs. "God forgie us! We let him by the garden, sir. Alec thought he " "Gosh, Onnie!" said Bill, "excuse me! I'll get some clothes on. Here, Ian " "Onnie," said Sanford, in the doorway "Onnie, what's the matter?"
"All this trouble's wearing him out, and he won't have a hired girl if we could catch one. There's a pile of trouble, San. He has rows every day. Had a hell of a row with Percival yesterday." "Who's this Percival? Onnie was cursing him out last night," Sanford recollected. "He's an awful big hog who's pulling logs at the runway. Used to be a plumber in Australia. Swears like a sailor.
Men fished him out of the dammed river, where logs floated, waiting conversion into merchantable planking, and the Varian boys, big, tawny youngsters, were his body-guard. These perplexed Onnie Killelia in her first days at Rawling's Hope. "The agent's lads are whistlin' for Master San," she reported to Mrs. Rawling. "Shall I be findin' him?" "The agent's lads? Do you mean the Varian boys?"
But I do love the poor old thing. Her letters are rich. She tells me about all the new babies and who's courting who and how the horses are. It is pathetic." He thought of Onnie often the next winter, and especially when she wrote a lyric of thanksgiving after the family had come to Rawling's Hope in April, saying that all would be well and trouble would cease.
We're in rotten shape for a hard summer. Go to bed, dear, and get warm." "Got a six-shooter for me?" "You? Who'd touch you? Some one would kill him. I let Bill have a gun, and some other steady heads. You must keep your temper. You always have. Ling Varian got into a splendid row with some hog who called Uncle Jim the usual name. Ling did him up. Ah, here's Onnie. Onnie, here's "
He's a what d' you call 'em? You know, a London mucker?" "Cockney?" "Yes, that's it. He put in your new bath-tub, and Onnie jumped him for going round the house looking at things. Dad's getting ready to fire him. He's the worst hand in the place. I'll point him out to you."
"She's appalling to look at, and she frightens the other girls, but she's clean and teachable. If she likes San, she may not marry one of the men for a while." "He'd be a bold man. She's as big as Jim Varian. If we run short of hands, I'll send her up to a cutting. Where's San?" "In the kitchen. He likes her. Heavens! if she'll only stay, Bob!" Onnie stayed, and Mrs.
"You'll go get dinner, Onnie Killelia," said Rawling. "Master San is tired, Bill and Ling are coming and look there!" The faithful were marching Percival down the road to the valley-mouth in the green dusk. He walked between Jansen and Bill, a dozen men behind, and a flying scud of boys before. "An' Robbie's not hurt," said Miss Cameron, "an' San ain't, neither; so don't you worry, Onnie.
Onnie, crying out on her saints, retrieved him from the turn-table-pit of the narrow-gauge logging-road, and pursued his fair head up the blue-stone crags behind the house, her vast feet causing avalanches among the garden beds.
After this outburst Sanford was not surprised when he heard from Onnie that his father now wore a revolver, and that the overseers of the sawmill did the same. On the first of June Rawling posted signs at the edge of his valley and at the railroad stations nearest, saying that he needed no more labor. The tide of applicants ceased, but Mrs. Rawling was nervous.
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