At noon! At the seventh noon, the whistle was to blow!
Perceiving the uselessness of further argument Arsdale climbed out to the bank, and, sitting on a big boulder, watched Donaldson with dazed fascination. The foreman passed him once.
"May be cracked," he remarked, "but I 'd' take a hundred men, the likes of him."
"You could n't find them on two continents," answered Arsdale.
The dog made overtures of friendship and he took him on his knee.
Donaldson never glanced up. With the precision of a machine he bent over his shovel, lifted, and threw without pause. The men near him looked askance at such unceasing labor.
In time, the foreman blew a shrill note on a whistle and as though he had applied a brake connected with every man, the shovels dropped and the motley gang scrambled for their dinner pails. Donaldson for the first time then lifted his face to Arsdale. The seventh noon had come, and never had a midday been ushered in to such a sweet note as the foreman had blown on his penny whistle.
Donaldson, picking up his coat, made his way to the side of Arsdale, who had risen to meet him with Sandy barking at his heels.