"Only healthily tired, they'll be bucking after a night's rest. The men seem a bit sullen though, the brutes. What the dickens do they want, I wonder? Fine weather, grand country, and quite enough to eat. Damn it, they've not fed those mules yet. I'll soon see about that," rising as he spoke.
"Better leave the men alone, Graeme; poor devils, they're tired too. For heaven's sake don't hustle them, they'll only lose their temper and answer back."
"Lose their temper, will they? So will I, then, and I'll warrant mine's worse than theirs."
"There's a time, Graeme, you know, when it's better to shut one's eyes—the velvet glove, you know;" but Hector had gone, and was now making his way to where a group of men were sitting in a circle, at some distance from the famished mules.
"Velvet glove be hanged," he muttered as he went; "that's all right when the steel hand's inside, not the flabby digits your gloves contain. Damn, you may be a devilish fine tactician or strategist, but you don't understand men. I do, and always have," and he strode on, the light of battle in his eyes.
Sick with nervous apprehension, Bradford watched him approach the group, and, as he reached it, say something to one of its members. The man, turning his head, looked up without rising, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, was resuming his conversation when Hector rushed at him, seized him by the collar, and dragged him to his feet. The others jumped up and gazed in astonishment at the intruder; a murmur of anger arose, but was almost instantaneously silenced, quelled by a fury such as staggered their dull souls. For a few minutes the winged words flew, and then Bradford saw Hector wheel round on the first man and point to the mules. Slowly the fellow was slouching off, when for the second time Graeme was on him, and, whirling him round, again spoke, when the man's hand went to his cap in a salute, and he stood stiffly at attention. Another order was given, on which the rest ranged themselves into line, were numbered off by fours—the proving being repeated three times before the requisite smartness was attained—and the men were marched briskly away to the waiting mules, which they proceeded to feed, Hector supervising. This operation completed, he rejoined his chief.
"Bit and spur, not sugar, for a tired horse," he observed, resuming his seat on the ground. "It's not the men's fault, though; they'd be all right if properly managed."
"What did you say to them, Graeme? It seems to have been pretty effective, whatever it was."
"Cursed them well, sir, called them every name I could lay my tongue to. That big fellow I promised to shoot if he spoke again. I'd have done it too, devilish near thing as it was."
"What?"