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But as he looked to Pinkey for the applause that he had earned, Chook stepped up to the machine and, with an impudent grin at Pinkey, grasped the handles. The pointer moved slowly round, and passed Stinky's mark, but Chook held on, determined to eclipse his rival. His muscles seemed to be cracking with pain, the seconds lengthened into intolerable hours.
He transferred two banknotes to the desk-drawer and went on with his scratching. "Gosh!" Pinkey lamented, as they stood outside clutching their quilts, "I wisht I knowed whur to locate them mackinaws. I got 'em in Lethbridge before I went to the army, and I think the world of 'em. I don't like 'poor-boys-serge, but I guess I'll have to come to it, since I'm busted." "What's that?"
The feature that saved the young fellow's face from a look of unmitigated "toughness" was his pale gray eyes, whose steady, fearless look seemed to contend with a whimsical gleam of humour. Pinkey listened, with the disciplined patience of the army, to the recital of the exploit that had won the War Cross for him, but there was a peculiar glint in his light eyes.
Look out for him everybody!" "G-gg-ggg-ough!" gurgled Pinkey. "Who bit you, feller?" the cook asked, soothingly. "G-ggg-gg-ough!" was the agonized answer. "We'll have to throw and hog-tie him." Mr. Hicks looked around to see if there was a rope handy. "Don't let him snap at you," called Mr. Stott from a safe distance. "If it gets in your blood, you're goners."
During breakfast they got up at intervals to look through the doorway, and while they washed dishes and tidied the cabin they watched the northwest anxiously. "She's movin' right along," Pinkey reported. "It might be a stiddy rain, and then agin it might be a thunder-shower, though you don't often look for 'em in the morning."
It was too stiff to move, and he used his knuckles. Then he heard footsteps and a rapid whispering, and Pinkey, white with anxiety, opened the door. Mrs Partridge, half dressed, slipped into the bedroom and called out in a loud voice: "Good afternoon, Mr Fowles! 'Ave yer come to take Elizabeth for a walk?" Ignoring Pinkey's whispered advice, he pushed in and looked round.
Unconscious of the scrutiny, Wallie continued to gaze in a kind of holy ecstasy at his wheat-field until Pinkey ejaculated: "My, but you've changed horrible!" "How, changed?" Wallie asked, absently. "You're so danged dirty! I should think you'd have to sand that shirt before you could hold it to git into it." "I hardly ever take it off," said Wallie.
"The front of it bent like rubber-glass and I couldn't stand it any longer." He added reminiscently: "There was a time when I wore a fresh shirt daily." Pinkey stared at him awe-stricken: "I wouldn't think changin' as often as that would be healthy."
"I'll go over to Canby's and hit the cook for some grub and be back pronto," said Pinkey. Wallie nodded. He was in no mood for conversation, for the realization of his failure was strong upon him, and he could not rid himself of the mortification he felt at having made a spectacle of himself before Helene Spenceley. The future looked utterly hopeless.
"Whur you goin'?" Pinkey, who had returned, was hanging over the edge watching him stumbling along with his kettle of water. "I'm hunting a place to get up," said Wallie, tartly. "How did you git down?" "'Way back there." "Why didn't you git up the same way?" "Couldn't without spilling the water." "I'll git a rope and snake you."
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