“Boss was jes’ sendin’ out a search party,” said Moody, creaking the gates back on the hinges. “Young Art’s bin lettin’ some queer kind o’ yarns fly———”
“Shouldn’t wonder. Did he come in, then?”
“Did he come in? Did he come like a bloomin’ torn Ida wi’ no frills lef’ ter him? Yes; he’s comed in. An’ what guv him the emu’s egg fresh laid atween his eyes?”
“Randal,” said Buck, stooping his head as the colt passed to its stall. Moody whistled in three-tiered admiration.
“Must ’a’ put some body-weight inter that,” he remarked. Then the flash of the lantern across the faces gave him sudden wisdom. “Don’t git tellin’ the boss too much about it, Randal, fur yer like ter be tellin’ him wi’ the aidge o’ yer fist too, be the look o’ yer.”
Randal’s feet crunched the gravel on the house-track, and Mogger’s voice rang after him:
“Randal—shall I come along an’ lend a hand?”
“No, thanks,” said Randal, speaking for the first time. And the dark dripping shadows of the pines took him.
Though a strong man must draw on himself only; now and again, slicing away the Present with the knife of the Years Between, comes the sharp over-mastering longing to take his trouble with child-hands back to his
