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The last of these, evidently the foreman, was joined by the two scalers. "What's that outfit?" he inquired with the sharpness of suspicion. "Old Injin Charley you remember, the old boy that tanned that buck for you down on Cedar Creek." "Yes, but the other fellow." "Oh, a hunter," replied the scaler carelessly. "Sure?" The man laughed. "Couldn't be nothin' else," he asserted with confidence.
"Howdy," he drawled, "got any smokin'?" "How are you," replied one of the scalers, eying him sharply, and tendering his pouch. Thorpe filled his pipe deliberately, and returned it with a heavy-lidded glance of thanks. To all appearances he was one of the lazy, shiftless white hunters of the backwoods.
The main drive's got to be sorted." "There ought to be plenty of good men," said Fox. "There are, but they're at work." "Dicky Darrell is over at Marion," spoke up one of the scalers. "Roaring Dick," said Tally sarcastically, " but there's no denying he's a good man in the woods. But if he's at Marion, he's drunk; and if he's drunk, you can't do nothing with him."
Bob checked over a long invoice of camp supplies; manipulated the copying press; and, under Collins's instructions, made out time checks against the next pay day. The insistence of details kept him at the stretch until noon surprised him. After dinner and a breath of fresh air, he plunged again into his tasks. Now he had the scalers' noon reports to transfer to the tally board.
In ten minutes he ran deftly over Bob's afternoon work; re-checking the supply invoices, verifying the time checks, comparing the tallies with the scalers' reports. So swiftly and accurately did he accomplish this, with so little hesitation and so assured a belief in his own correctness that the really taxing job seemed merely a bit of light mental gymnastics after the day's work.
Our reserves on the right rushed over to defend the threatened point. Meanwhile, four companies of the enemy's scalers made a detour round the foot of the hill, and dashed into Fort Slatter without opposition. At the same moment General Ames's gunners closed in on our left, and there we were between two fires. Of course we had to vacate the fort.
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