"Then go--the two of you!" Reed cried, angrily, "I'm goin' to stay--I ain't nothin' to complain of. Him and me," he nodded at Wallie, "can dig that well without ye."
Surly, and without speaking, the boys took their departure.
"They got bad dispositions--they take after their mother," Rufus remarked, looking after them. "With you to work the windlass and empty the bucket we'll make out without them till I pick up another crew somewhere."
"I am willing to accept my loss and quit," Wallie pleaded.
"Well, I ain't!" declared Rufus, unnecessarily bellicose. "A contract is a contract and I got you in writin'."
Wallie could not deny it and subsided meekly, putting a ham on to boil with a cabbage while Rufus smoked until he was ready to assist him.
"If they's anything I like it's a good mess of ham and cabbage," he observed.
"I am glad to have found something to stimulate your appetite--it's worried me," replied Wallie. But his sarcasm was wasted on Rufus who arose, yawning, when Wallie indicated that he was ready.
Turning the windlass according to instructions, Wallie deposited Rufus in the bottom. Then at intervals he hoisted the bucket which Rufus filled in leisurely fashion, and emptied it, performing the two men's work easily.
Wallie went down occasionally to stoke the fire, and upon his return reported so favourably upon the ham and cabbage that Rufus took to consulting his watch rather frequently after ten-thirty.
"I'll quit at 'leven," he informed Wallie, "and that'll give you plenty of time to make a batch of biscuit and get dinner."
Wallie agreed with him that it was an excellent idea and promptly at eleven pulled up the bucket of dirt which was to be the last one.
When it did not come down immediately, Rufus called to him: "Hi! I'm ready! Get a move on, for I'm starvin'."
There was no response at the opening.
"What's the matter with you?" he demanded, impatiently.
The echo of his own voice answered him. Slightly alarmed he called louder: "Macpherson! What's happened to ye?"
Still no answer.
Distinctly nervous, Rufus shouted at the top of his lungs for Wallie and the bucket, breaking into a perspiration at the continued silence.
Was he sick? Fainted? Dead? Many things that could occur came to Reed as he halloed futilely.
When one o'clock came he was hoarse from yelling and sick with fear at his predicament. His imagination painted gruesome pictures as he sweated. He saw himself weak and emaciated, dying slowly of starvation, collapsing, finally to lie undiscovered for days, weeks maybe. The memory of a field mouse that had fallen into a pit haunted him, its futile, frantic struggles to scale the steep sides, and he remembered that when he had passed that way again he had looked and found it dead in the bottom. He wished now that he had rescued it.