“What’s it looking like below, Mac?” he asked.
“Dry,” said Scottie, slowly, “vera dry.” As they had all been thinking and talking of little else but the dry spell that had lain hot and heavy on the land for months past, this did not convey much fresh information.
“How d’you think the sheep are makin’ out?” tried Whip Thompson again.
“They micht be better,” said Scottie. “But then again, they micht be worse.”
“Wot’s the boss sayin’ about it?” asked another man.
“What would he be saying?” countered Scottie.
“If I was ’im,” struck in Jack Ever, a little man with a peaky face, “I’d be sayin’ something in sulphur-coloured langwidge wi’ purple trimmin’s.”
Scottie made no reply, and the men began to drift slowly out of doors to lounge and smoke, or perch themselves on the rail in front of the hut.
“’E’s a bloomin’ hencyclopeedy, ain’t ’e?” said Ever, disgustedly, when he had settled himself comfortably.
“You’d have got more if you’d asked less,” said Aleck Gault, with a light laugh.