Though it cost him an effort, Weston contrived to keep his companion going until the dinner hour arrived, and he found the work a little easier when he had eaten. Still, he was perplexed about Grenfell, who did not understand what arrangement he had arrived at with the mine captain. Grenfell spent the afternoon mending his own and some of Weston’s clothes, which badly needed it, and the evening meal was over when the latter sat with the others outside the shanty wearing a jacket which his companion had sewed. Grenfell, however, was not with them just then. By and by the man who had desired to wreck the hotel bar turned to Weston.
“What are you going to do with your partner?” he asked.
“I don’t quite know,” said Weston. “In the meanwhile he’ll stay here.”
“How’s he going to raise his board?”
“That’s not quite your business,” said Weston quietly.
The man laughed good-humoredly.
“Well,” he replied, “in one way I guess it isn’t. Still, if you pay your partner’s board you’re going to have mighty little money left. Mended that jacket, didn’t he? Won’t you take it off?”
Weston wondered a little at this request, but he complied; and the man passed the garment around to’ the others, who gravely inspected the sewed-up rents and the patches inserted in it.
“Quite neat, isn’t it?” he commented.
They admitted that it was; and the chopper, handing the garment back to Weston, smiled as though satisfied.