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The mothering instinct was just as strong in her nature as in most girls of her age. But she knew her duty lay elsewhere. Before this time Captain Rugley had never entirely given over the reins of government into the hands of Silent Sam. He had kept in touch with ranch affairs, delegating some duties to Frances, others to Sam or to the underforeman.
"I'm afraid you've made it hard for yourself, Koppy," said the foreman. "How long will it take them to finish?" "Supper is their time," returned the underforeman stiffly. He was temporising; he scarcely knew how far it was wise to resist. "After supper?" He shrugged his shoulders in simulated indifference. Conrad ran undisturbed eye over the tables, noting the pie before each diner.
I resign in favour of Chico." "I need Morani." "Not half as bad as I do, pompous one. Look here, old chap, this is a big job, ain't it, a real big thing?" "Perhaps the end of everything," agreed the underforeman solemnly. "That's why I'm not hankering for it," said Werner under his breath.
"Koppy's underforeman, ain't he?" The halfbreed spat with disgust, and Torrance chuckled sympathetically. "If I did that every time I felt like it about Koppy, I'd be as dry as a camp-meeting in three days. You're not afraid of him, are you?" Mavy grinned. "Because Koppy's going to be some busy for the next few weeks hanging out under that trestle, and we'll need another underforeman perhaps."
"But Conrad only got down there; I saw him." Torrance squinted sternly at the halfbreed. Mavy nodded. "I come by the trestle." "The h you did!" The halfbreed shrugged his shoulders. The contractor examined him with renewed interest. "How'd you like to be an underforeman?" Again the wide, sloping shoulders shrugged. "Say, you don't mean you'd turn down an extra dollar a day?"
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "He wouldn't, of course. But wouldn't it have been a story?" "The sort of story that never happens even in books," he sighed. Three low taps sounded on the side of Koppy's shack. The underforeman rose and, standing well back in the gloom of the interior, peered through the open door to the boss's shack beside the grade.
Daddy wanted to make him underforeman, but he refused. And now" she peered in awe over the edge "he's killed." "Guilty conscience, I guess," commented the Sergeant. "Lots of them are taken that way when they see the uniform though I don't recall quite such a sudden and successful attempt at suicide." "Suicide!" snorted Torrance, who was lying down where he could see the scene below.
The face of the underforeman went livid; a flood of foul expletives clogged his utterance. The one who had not yet spoken broke in soothingly: "Lefty just means he hit you hard. Why no somebody knife him?" The four men asked each other the question with their eyes and, receiving no answer, looked confused. "Why no you, Heppel?" demanded Koppy. "I had no time."
Over his face, into his very clothes and manner, had passed something that tumbled her rudely back to the Koppy she knew best, the malignant, sneering, mesmeric, uncouth underforeman her father and Adrian suspected. He stooped and lifted his hat jerkily. "Workers strong," he said in his broken English. "They see big things, they do them. I, a vice-president just a Pole, but big man I order.
His eye moved upward from the camp and settled on one lone shack that crowned a promontory overlooking the ugly scene below. "Koppy's at home," he called. "Some day you'll find out something about your underforeman," she teased. "I wish I could," he returned so viciously that she laughed aloud. "You've been wishing it a long time, but to date he seems innocent enough.
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