Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/423

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A GOOD TRUE FRIEND

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much attention, but kept on knockin' around and swearin'. 'Come, now,' says the foreman, kind o' coaxin' like, 'this ain't no way to act. Get down and behave yourselves.' But still they didn't pay no attention. Then the Boss walked up to the biggest one, and when he got quite close to 'em they all got still lookin' on. 'I'll take that hand-spike,' says the Boss. 'Help yourself,' says the man swingin' it up. I don't know what happened, it was done so quick, but before you could count three that feller was on his knees bleedin' like a pig and the hand-spike was out of the door, and the Boss walks up to the other feller and says, 'Put that hand-spike outside.' He begun to swear. 'Put it out,' says the Boss, quiet-like, and the feller backs up and throws his hand-spike out. And the Boss up and speaks and says, 'Look here, men, I don't want to interfere with nobody, and won't while he behaves himself, but there ain't goin' to be any row like that in this camp.' Say, you ought to have seen 'em! They sat like the gang used to in the night school, and then he turned and walked out and we all follered him. I guess they ain't used to that sort of thing in this camp. I heard the men talkin' next day pretty big of what they was goin' to do, but I don't think they'll do much. They don't look that kind. Anyway, if there's goin' to be a fight, I'd feel safer with the Boss than with the whole lot of 'em."

"The letter after this," went on Kate, "tells of what happened the Sunday following."

"We'd gone out in the afternoon, Boss and me, for a walk, and when we got back the camp was just howlin' drunk, and the foreman was worst of all. They kind o' quieted down for a little when we come in and let us get into the office, but pretty soon they began actin' up funny again and swearin' most awful. Then I see the Boss shut up his lips hard, and I says to myself 'Look out for blood.' Then he starts over for the bunk shanty. I was mighty scared, and follered him close. Just as we shoved open the door a bottle come singin' through the air and smashed to a thousand bits on the beam above. 'Is that the kind of cowards you are?' says the Boss, quite cool. He didn't speak loud, but I tell you everybody heard him and got dead still. 'No, Boss,' says one feller, 'not all' 'The man that threw that bottle,' says the Boss, 'is a coward, and the meanest kind. He's afraid to step

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