man. “I didn’t was a ellerfunt ever. But perhaps Jimmie———”
Then the boys gasped. For two men were musterers from Glenhula, and the third man was Jimmie Blaine.
Danny rescued from the flame the shirt that Ted Douglas dropped as he jumped forward.
“Jimmie! Hello, Jimmie, old boy———”
Jimmie swung his back to the eager hand.
“I ain’t talkin’ wi’ you,” he said.
Silence cut sheer down through talk and movement, so that the shudder of the tent-flaps out in the wind sounded loudly. Murray had sworn secrecy on the boys who had come up from the township in the last week to bring the sheep in to Mains. But Scott broke his oath with deliberation. It was Danny’s unshaken opinion that Scott would cause dissension even among the worms that should eat him.
“Per’aps Ted ain’t any too keen hisself ter be speakin’ ter a liar an’ a thief,” he said.
Jimmie slid out of his oilskins, and his peaked face flamed.
“Who you callin’ names?” he demanded.
“You,” said Scott, in simple explanation; and Lou, propped against the wall in his grey blanket, grinned on the pipe-stem. He had seen a court-martial before, with himself on the drum-head. Then Mogger paid in his contribution:
