did not care to have the safety o£ Argyle depending on a cop with rats.
Steve scowled, gathering up the lines, and wearing his own team round.
“Don’t you fret,” he said; “Murray roped the Packer in last night what has been goin’ it gay fur a week. He’ll git you all right when he comes wantin’ yer.”
Over the hill, on the Lion, Murray was speaking of the Packer to Ormond. Ormond had not seen Murray this month past, and the sight shocked him. For the man was white-lipped and nervous; his well-knit body had fallen away, and his chin twitched. Ormond made place on the dried warm tailings, and tipped tea for the other out of his lunch-billy the while he mined craftily for confidence.
“Yes, I’ll send a man over to bring in the Packer’s tools,” he said. “Not that I think any one would sneak them. They’re patched with every imaginable thing under the sun. And what the devil is the Packer patched with, Murray? He’s a wonder! At his age, too! I couldn’t stand it—or you.”
“We breed good men yet—for more than drink,” said Murray, absently.
Ormond’s eyes lit as he blinked downhill through the rim of sunshine to the creek bed where Gordon and three more staggered under weight of a twenty-one-foot pipe.
“We do so. There’s every breath of four
