The music carried far and men came from the house and tents, splashed at the wash bench, and waved to Kit.
“Some tune, stranger! Hit her up!”
By and by the foreman walked along the line.
“I reckoned you had quit!”
Kit said the cook had stated he might stay for a day or two, and the other nodded.
“Well, you can play mornings and evenings. If I hear the fiddle after the boys get busy, I’ll put you off the camp.”
It looked as if the cook were important, but somebody beat a suspended iron bar and the men started for the house. Kit went with the others and the cook pushed a big coffee can into his hands.
“Hustle round the table and keep the boys supplied. When all’s gone ye’ll get a fresh lot in the shack.”
Kit saw he must earn his breakfast. In Canada, a minstrel was evidently not an honored guest, but he must not grumble, and he ran about with the can. When the men went off, the cook gave him a heaped plate and he noticed that the bacon was thin and crisp and the sliced potatoes were golden brown. Kit imagined the gang did not get the best.
After breakfast they cleaned the plates, and then Kit chopped wood and carried water. In the afternoon he pulled down and mended the smoking stove pipe, and when dusk fell he admitted that to help the cook was not the joke he thought.