"He's the kind of Johnny that'd fire the Mill," said Ginger White, who so far had held his tongue.
"White's on the target," said Mac as the whistle blew. But he forgot about it when the song and the dance of the day commenced. There's fine forgetfulness in work.
Quin was as foolish as the rest of them. That is to say, he talked to the police and came to the conclusion that Pete wasn't likely to be on hand now and for ever after. He knew what Mac knew and despised the average Coast Indian. It was true enough they weren't up to much unless they were "full," full, that is, of liquor. And a man like Quin knew by instinct the weakness there was in such as Pete, in spite of his now bloody record. For Quin had a fine square jaw and Pete hadn't. But then Quin was incapable of underhand night work. And he didn't know that Pete was like a rat in a trap, as a criminal is in British Columbia. And there was another thing. He knew that Ned wasn't dead, by any means. It never occurred to him that Pete believed he had killed Cultus and must be desperate if he wasn't out of the country.
"I wish the swine was dead," said George Quin. "I believe I'd marry Jenny."
She had twined herself round his heart, and when he saw her nursing the one child he had ever been father of he was as soft as cream with her. Not a soul about the City would have believed it was George Quin if they had seen him with his naked boy in his arms. Only the Chinamen knew about it, for Sam told them, being delighted, as they all are, with male offspring. They really sympathised with the big boss as they thought of their own wives far away in "China-side" and the children some of them hadn't seen. Old Wong wept secretly, for he had worked and gone home to marry a wife, and she had died. It wasn't likely he would ever make enough money to buy another, unless he got it by gambling. He was as bad at that as old Papp, the German, who still hadn't made sufficient to go home to "California," in spite of all his work, and those muscles which made him feel as if he would "braig dings" if he didn't toil.
Yes, tilikum, George Quin, "Tchorch," was happy, as happy as he could be.
And Jenny was nearly as happy as she could be. Her child was a gift from heaven, even if heaven frowned as it gave her the beautiful boy. She never saw the Bible or the horrid pictures and she saw instead the scripture of the child's pure flesh hourly and read the dark language of her man's heart. He adored what she had given him, and she knew, as a woman may know, that underneath his awkward roughness and his careless ways, sometimes not wholly gentle, there was real love for her and the wish to be good. And when he sat with her and smoked, she caught the paternal look of full satisfaction that he feigned to hide from himself. What a boy it was!
He was as fat as a prairie chicken, and as full of life as a fresh-run salmon. How pink he showed in hot water: how he squealed like a dear little pig and kicked his crumpled dimpled legs! Was there ever such a boy before?
"Oh, Tchorch, see," said Jenny. She showed him the baby's thick dark hair. The child was a garden of delight that she cultivated all day long.
But she never forgot "Tchorch," who had been so good to her, and had taken her to Victoria and driven her about in a fine carriage: who had showed her the world. If she had only been his wife the whole earth could have offered her nothing.