"You leave them alone."
Cockney fired one word at William, his eyes as if a lamp was reflected in them. William wrestled inwardly, clenched his hands at his side, and Cockney moved on. William turned back from him, letting the matter rest there in consideration of Cockney's state; but he did not look where he was going, still had a lingering inclination to punch Cockney anyhow, and had his head turned so that Cockney could see that thought in his eye. The end stallion flung its head up and down, with a sidewise swing, loose necked, and William got the blow full on the side of his face and head, and went down.
"Yah!" jeered Cockney, as William dragged himself up on one palm, clapping the flat of his other hand to his temple, and he returned by way of the upper deck (for he was at the far end of the stallion row) with a dancing step, to narrate to those in the cattlemen's quarters what had befallen. And they were quietly satisfied, for William was no favourite. They all remembered how he had come to their door one morning, and stood behind Candlass in the attitude of a prize-fighter being photographed for the posters.
The steers were not like that. Many of the men had pets among them. There was a big fellow on the main deck that won almost all the men over, all those that could be won over by anything. He began his engaging ways about the third day, and kept them up thereafter. As soon as he saw anything on two legs advancing he thrust his head across the alley, holding it a little tilted like a cat that asks to have its neck scratched. After the feeding and watering was over knots would linger there, beside that wise long-horn. The hand was not enough; he preferred the edge of a piece of board rubbed up and down. Seeing how he enjoyed a scratch, various men offered themselves as scratchers to other beasts. You could see the men all along the alley, each with a piece of board, arms going up and down automaton-like, the steers with their heads slowly turning, gratified. And as the men like clock-work figures scratched the beasts' necks, they carried on shouting discussions each to each. But this big fellow who inaugurated the scratching was especially charming. When one side was scratched sufficiently for the time being, he would raise his head up and over, carefully, so that his long horns might not smite his human friend, and then present the other side of the neck for treatment. If the movement was not observed he would turn his head slowly to the side, pushing—none of your swinging blows from him, no suggestion ever of drawing back his head and launching it forward with sharp horn projecting.
The bulls, too, that had been unruly the first day, were now all friendly. If a man happened to lean against their pen, he would be reminded of where he was, not by a prod of a horn, but by a ringed nose nuzzling into the hands held behind.
After the glorious scent of balsam, blown out to us from the south shore, became so thin it was scarcely perceptible amid the smell of beasts, the whoop of the siren, thrilling the decks, on and on, was added to the lowing of the steers and the bleating of sheep. The Glory slowed down slightly and glided into the Newfoundland fog.
CHAPTER XII
Fog reeked and rolled round the ship, and there was a swell on the sea. Under the fog it moved, with knolls and valleys, high and low, regular and apparently everlasting as those rolls and dips of green grazing land from Rocky Mountain House down to the Little Missouri—that country "beyant," whence came the cattle. Ever and again one could see across and along, under the fog, as a man on hands and knees might, lifting a carpet's edge, look along the floor. But even that was a doubtful kind of vision, with shifting and obliterating coils of vapour, so that even if the fog lifted for a yard or two it seemed as if the sea steamed below the lifted fog. The sea's surface seemed covered by a film, and the swell moved under it, a film that the Glory broke as she loomed along, sliding her nose up and down, many feet to the rise, many feet to the drop, advancing all the while. It was before the day of wireless. No messages were coming and going; only her siren complained into the wilderness of fog and water. Forward, the first officer and a couple of seamen took soundings. The ship stopped in a great stillness. Sheep sneezed and coughed; the cattle lowed. Deep down there was a sound of shovelling of coal; then a bell cling-clanged, and once again there broke out a sound as of a "hush," and the whirl and whirl of the shaft with its old refrain.
Feeding and watering being over for the afternoon, the cattlemen clustered in their hot den, that little bit of an iron safe of a place, going up in the air, swinging left and right, full of such sounds as a cane chair makes. Michael, squat and broad, patch on his eye, was telling some experience of his life to somebody; another man drew near to listen and remained; still more clustered round. Twosomes, talking in corners, desisted to listen also.