"You're going to put me in an awful hole, Toy, if you go."
"She want my job, I think. All light--I no care."
Bruce knew him too well to argue. The Chinaman could see only one thing, and that loomed colossal. He had been insulted; his dignity would not permit him even to breathe under the same roof with a woman who said he could not cook. He turned away abruptly and jogged down the trail with the overalls stuffed with his possessions bobbing ludicrously on his back.
Heavy-hearted Bruce watched him go. If Toy had forgotten that he owed him for his life he would not remind him, but he had thought that the Chinaman's gratitude was deeper than this, although, it was true, he never had thanked him or indicated in any way that he realized or appreciated what Bruce had done. Nevertheless Bruce had believed that in his way Toy was fond of him, that deep under his yellow skin there was loyalty and a passive, undemonstrative affection. Obviously there was none. He was no different from other Chinamen, it seemed--the white man and his country were only means to an end.
Bruce would not have believed that anybody with oblique eyes and a shingled queue could have hurt him so. Of the three men he had befriended, two had turned the knife in him. He wondered cynically how soon he would hear from Uncle Bill.