“‘Hot watel’! I’m burning up now!”
“Here you, get into bed, hop. I ketchem warm watel. Cold watel no good, make velly sick. Hop.”
Rickard hopped. He was worn to the point of yielding to any authoritative voice. The day had been exhausting. His eyes closed with weariness. He did not watch Ling’s new captaincy. The Chinese, soft-slippered, pattered around the tent, and out. The sheets felt cool and comfortable. Rickard had a sensation of dropping, falling into oblivion.
The day, confused and jumbled, burned across his eyeballs; a turmoil of bustle and hurry of insurrection. He had made a swift stand against that. He was to be minded to the last man-jack of them, or any one would go, his threat including the engineers, Silent, Irish, Wooster, Hardin himself. This was no time for factions, for leader feeling. They knew he meant business; perhaps the tussle with the Indians had had good effect. But he had lost his temper with Hardin and Wooster; he didn’t feel pleased with himself. It left a sting of self-discontent which pulled him back from the rest into which he was sinking. A man can enjoy the mastery over other men if he gets out of it with self-control. It seemed worse now than when he had been in the clamor and the contention of the day. Tossing feverishly on his bed, the day’s perspective gave no order, no progress. His body was hot, his head on fire.
His grouch focused on Wooster. “The gall of him!” He recalled the snapping black beads of eyes as they resented Rickard’s criticism of his handling of the rock.
“Who’s superintendent here?” had growled Wooster.
“It is a pity that I must superintend your superintending,” had been his answer. “You will obey my orders, or quit.”
“He’s had an ax for me ever since I came; he’s been sore ever since I won over the Indians. He thought he was going to see me crushed. The whole camp would have crowed had those Indians marched out. Lord, what a head I have!”
Ling came in, towing a portable tub of galvanized tin, a bucket of steaming water in his other hand.
“If you think you’re going to get me into that, you’re mistaken,” Rickard raised his head to scowl at the bucket. Ling had the tact not to answer. Quiet as a cat, he placed the tub by the bedside, and emptied the bucket. Pattering to the door, he took from an unseen waiting hand, another pail of rising steam, and a large yellow-papered tin of mustard.