The Traileys in the tent, and Sam and Bert in the covered wagon, slept the sleep of pioneers. Already they were dovetailing themselves into their new environment; already they were shedding tomfool notions of polo ponies, and ranching. Slowly but surely they were acquiring fresh aspirations, and, in the case of two of them, fresh emotions.
CHAPTER IX
An Early Morning Shoot
Soon after daybreak, the corner of a packing-case sticking into his ribs pried Sam awake. Rays from a young but powerful sun soon filtered through the canvas of the schooner-top and burned his face with a congestion of heat. His feet, which had become uncovered during the night, were tangled up with the chilly anatomy of a combination walking plough, and were stone cold.
"Hey, Bert!" he called. "Wyke yerself up!" and he jerked the blankets off his still sleeping partner.
Bert blinked and yawned and came down to earth with a peevish flop. Fishing about among a drift of clothes and blankets for a cigarette, he said petulantly:
"Damn you, Sam! Why can't you let a fellow sleep?"
Sam merely grinned and lighted a cigarette. The best speeches are never made at dawn. Bert had again enjoyed a remarkable run of dreaming. First he had performed the hat trick twice running in a county cricket match; then, after running through the admiring crowds to the pavilion, he had hurriedly changed his clothes and carried a pretty girl clear across the Atlantic, and three-quarters of the way over the Pacific. Then a liner had come along and picked them both up. The Rev. Isaac M. Barr, strangely enough, happened to be the boat's chaplain. He persisted in wishing to marry them, because—as he was very careful to explain—besides being a parson, and a colonizer, he was a man of God, and that therefore he, as an unrivalled exponent of true morality, must insist on their marriage. Bert was just about to agree when Sam wakened him.
Except for boots and coats, and on Bert's part a white, soft collar and coloured tie, they were already dressed. After a little swearing, and cigarette smoking, and the exchanging of a few flashes of bilious humour, in the usual manner of camp life in the early morning, they threw open the sheet and trickled out into a perfect spring day.
The chilly dawn had condensed the last few shreds of a lambent ground mist into myriads of tiny dewdrops, which a thirsty sun was fast licking up. Sam contrasted his surroundings with those he had been used to. He filled his mouth with cigarette smoke and blew it in the air, arrogantly.