When the train started Britt came again and penned the young man in his seat against the window-casing.
“You’ve started in makin’ yourself worth while, even if you are only the chaney man,” vouchsafed his employer. “You did an infernal fool trick, but you’ve saved me Tommy Eye, the best teamster on the Umcolcus waters. As he lies there now he ain’t worth half a cent a pound to feed to cats; when he’s on a load with the webbin’s in his hands I wouldn’t take ten thousand dollars for him.”
“Is he a sort of personal property of yours?” asked Wade, sullenly. He was venting his own resentment at Pulaski Britt’s airs of general proprietorship over men.
“Just the same as that,” replied Britt, complacently. “I’ve had him more than twenty years, and I’d like to see him try to go to work for any one else, or any one else try to hire him away.” He struck his hand on the young man’s knee. “Up this way, if you don’t make men know you own ’em, you’re missin’ one of the main points of forestry!” He sneered this word every time he used it in his talk with Wade. The new chaney man began to wonder how much longer he could endure the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt without rising and cuffing those puffy cheeks.
CHAPTER IV
THE BOSS OF THE “BUSTERS”
“If you don’t like our looks nor ain’t stuck on our kind,
Git back with the dames in the next car behind.”
