The other men had all stopped to watch. Now Ben swung about upon them,
his voice lifted in a string of cockney oaths, commanding them not to
stand still all day, but to get to work. At almost his first word the
teams began to move again, the men laughing, calling to one another,
jeering at the defeated Swede, or merely shrugging their shoulders.
And Greek Conniston, his face still white from what he had just
witnessed, began to see, although still dimly, what it was he had
taken into his two hands to do.
He glanced down at his hands. The middle finger of the right one, with
which he had struck Brayley's heavy cheek-bone, was swollen to twice
its natural size, stiff and sore. The nails were broken and blackened.
There were a dozen scratches and little cuts. The palms were hard and
calloused, with bits of loose skin along the base of the fingers where
blisters had formed and broken and healed over.
He lifted his head, and his speculative eyes ran back along the ditch.
The work was again running smoothly, quietly, save for the clanking of
the scrapers and the men's voices calling to their horses and mules,
each man intent upon his own duty, the face of the desert as peaceful
as the hot, clear arch of the sky above.
CHAPTER XIV
Three days passed, four, a week, and still no word came of the men for
whom the "Old Man" had wired to Denver.
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