"I want you not tell nobody I buy your team. Nobody but Stiffy. I want hire white man to drive, see? Maybe he not lak work for red man. So you mak' out he workin' for you, see?"
"All right," agreed Mahooley. "That's easy. But who can you get?"
"Sam."
Mahooley indignantly exploded. Sam, the white slave, the butt of the whole camp, the tramp without a coat to his back or a hat to cover his head. He assured Musq'oosis more than once that he was crazy.
It may be that with his scorn was mixed a natural anxiety not to lose a cheap cook. Anyhow, Musq'oosis, calm and smiling, stuck to the point, and, of course, when it came to it the chance of getting the Fish-Eater's trade was too good to be missed. They finally shook hands on the deal.
Of the night that followed little need be said. As a result of the day's excitement the crowd stopping at the kitchen was in an uplifted state, anyway, and from some mysterious source a jug of illicit spirits was produced. It circulated in the bunk-room until far into the night.
They were not a hopelessly bad lot as men go, only uproarious. There was not one among them inhuman enough of himself to have tortured a fellow-creature, but in a crowd each dreaded to appear better than his fellows, and it was a case of egging each other on. Sam, who had thought he had already drained his cup of bitterness, found that it could be filled afresh.
If he had been a tame spirit it would not have hurt him, and before this the game would have lost its zest for them. It was his helpless rage which nearly killed him, and which provided their fun. Mahooley, keeping what had happened to himself, led his tormentors. Sam was prevented from escaping the place.
Next morning, after he had fed them and they had gone out, he sat down in his kitchen, worn out and sick with discouragement, trying to think what to do.