The men groaned and went to work.
They forgot to groan in twenty minutes.
It was good work in an hour and good men loved it for a while.
But it was work that Pitt River Pete saw as he leant against the wall. It wasn't an English pretence, or a Spanish lie, or an Irish humbug: it was Pacific Slope work, where men fly. They work out West!
"Oh, Klahya!"
"I wonder if I can get a jhob," said Pete. And the job worked up for him under his very eyes, for Quin had a quick mind to give him work and get pretty Jenny near, and Ginger White was sore against Simmons.
Yes, Pitt River Pete, you can get "a jhob!" Devil doubt it, for you've a pretty wife, and White drove the carriage fast and faster still, drove it indeed faster than the saw could take it, meaning to hustle Simmons and have present leave to burst out into blasphemy. Things happen quick in the Mill, in any mill, and of a sudden White stopped the carriage dead and yelled to Simmons on the log:
"Can't you keep her open, damn you? Are you goin' to sleep there? Oh, go home and die!"
Simmons, on the log on his knees, looked up savagely. Though the big Hoes were silent there was row enough with the Pony Saw and the Big Trimmer and Chinee Trimmer and the Lath Mill and the Shingle Saw and the Bull Wheel and the groaning and complaining of the planing machines outside. So Simmons heard nothing. He saw Ginger's face and saw the end had come to work. He knew it. It had been coming this long time and now had come. But Simmons said nothing: he grinned like a catamount instead, and then looked round and saw Quin. He also saw Pete.
"To hell," said Simmons.