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Updated: May 14, 2025
The principal tavern there stands on that corner of the court-house square to which the swamper would naturally come first. Here he was to find the engineer.
There was a line of shallow graves along that road; they used to count on dropping a man or two of every new gang of coolies brought out in the hot season. But when he lost his swamper, smitten without warning at the noon halt, Salty quit his job; he said it was "too durn hot."
I make enough money for a stake, and then I sit around by myself, and shake hands with myself, and have a smoke, and read history, and I don't contribute to the wealth of Brother Elder or Daddy Cass." "You I fancy you read a good deal." "Yep. In a hit-or-a-miss way. I'll tell you: I'm a lone wolf. I trade horses, and saw wood, and work in lumber-camps I'm a first-rate swamper.
He performed a man's work from the start awkwardly at first, but, with the mastery of detail acquired under the able tutelage of Stromberg, he became known as the best swamper on the job. Between him and the big Swede existed a condition of armed neutrality. Neither ever referred to the incident of the bunk-house, nor did either show hint of ill-feeling toward the other.
He was very close now, and the girl noticed the peculiar expression of his face an expression she had seen there once before his lips were smiling, and his gray eyes were narrowed almost to slits. The man halted scarcely fifty feet from her, at the place where the swamper, with wide blows of his axe, was laying the small saplings and brushwood low.
"Sam!" the swamp boy spat into the water. "He's a " But what Sam was, in the opinion of the swamper, Val never learned, for at that moment Ricky burst from between two bushes. "Well, at last," she panted, "I've gotten rid of my army. Val, do you think that Lucy is going to be like this all the time order us about, I mean?" "Who's that?" Jeems was on his feet looking at Ricky.
The men snickered, and Stromberg, emboldened by the silence of his new swamper, continued: "It's time boys was in bed. To-morrow I make you earn your wages." Bill rose slowly from his seat, and as he looked again into the face of the big Swede his lips smiled.
There was a stir beside him. Val glanced up to meet the slightest of reassuring nods from the swamper. Jeems was with him. "Whatcha gonna do with the joint, Brick?" asked Red, tossing his cigarette down on the flagstones and grinding it to powder with his heel. "I dunno yet." The rival strode importantly toward the front door. "You might tell us when you find out," Val suggested quietly.
He dug the fingernails of his sound hand into the soft wood of the chair arm. Could Jeems interpret that hint? Someone must remove and hide the Luck before these men saw it. "Right." The swamper turned on his heel and padded toward the French windows. "No, you don't!" the rival snarled as he moved into line between Jeems and his objective. "When we want that guy, we'll hunt him out ourselves.
"Mistuh Val," she said, "dat Jeems boy done wan' to see yo'all." "Bother Jeems!" Val exploded, his eyes on Ricky's back. But he stepped into the bedroom where the swamper was still imprisoned by Lucy's orders. The boy was propped up on his pillows, looking out of the window. His body was tense. At the sound of Val's step he turned his bandaged head. "Can't yo' git me outa heah?" he demanded.
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