get no speech with her day by day, nor any answer to his letter, posted, as of old, in the dead laurel beside her window.
Down the gully-side, among the white naked bones of dead bush Buck was coming with his team and his cheerful unmusical song. The sky was ruled hard along the gully-top; green-black, with angry red to westward, and Randal came to his feet in weary haste.
“Pass along the hauling-tackle, Mogger. Back ’em. Buck. Back ’em, you idiot. We’re going to get a storm out of this directly———”
Then he swore as a cast chain flicked skin from his ear in its spinning, caught the hook at end of it, and forced it into the horse-shoe driven deep into the stump. Mogger wrestled on the far side shouting directions as Buck brought his team up to the collar.
“Get the bar,” said Randal, sliding the jack under the root in the only possible place, and Mogger took up position with the unerring exactness of one who has done the same thing many, many times.
With soft voice and hands Buck drew from the horses each last inch they could give. But always, not being built on ratchet lines, the purchase broke under struggle of straining hoofs, and the stump jammed on the nose of the jack, flaying Randal’s hands until he cast the thing aside in disgust.
