"Konaway sun
Hyu Keely
Annawillee!"
It was a mournful dirge: she sang and smoked and wept and giggled and tried to make eyes at Jack who must love her or he could never have given her a "Cigalette." He was heaps nicer than Chihuahua.
She set them off singing and more drink was brought in, and still Annawillee said she was very "keely" or sad. Indeed, she was weeping drunk and no one paid any attention to her, least of all Chihuahua. Jack sang a chanty about Dandy Rob of the Orinoco and a pleasing meal of boiled sawdust and bullock's liver, "blow, my bully boys, blow!" and wept to think of Whitechapel. An encore resulted in "My rorty carrotty Sal, who kems from W'itechapal," and then Jack subsided amid applause, and slept the sleep of great success.
But Pete was now "full" and could speak to Chihuahua and to Spanish Joe and Skookum Charlie who had come in together.
"Why you come here, Pete?" asked Skookum. "They say you have a good jhob up to Kamloops."
"I tell you, tilikum," said Pete. "Me and Jenny here was with Ned Quin, Cultus Muckamuck we call him up alound the Dly Belt. Ain't he a son of a gun, Jenny?"
Jenny nodded and took a cigarette from Chihuahua with a heavenly smile. They were all lying around the fire but Pete and Jenny. The other klootchmen were mostly fast asleep: Indian Annie was insensible. Pete went on talking in a high pitched but not unpleasant voice. His English was by no means so bad though not so good as Jenny's.
"Mary, my sister, she's Ned Quin's klootchman," said Pete, "and has been with him years, since his white woman died. I forget how long: nika kopet kumtuks, it's so long. So me and Jenny work there: she with Mary, me outside with the moos-mooses, wagon, plowin', harrowin', and scraper team. Oh, I work lika hell all one year, dollar a day and muckamuck: and old Ned he was Cultus Muckamuck, oh, you bet, tilikums: mean as mud. Him and me don't hit it off, but I lika the place, not too wet, good kieutans to ride, and, when I get sick and full up of Cultus, Jenny here she fond of my sister and when she was full up of Mary I just happen to pull with Cultus, so that's why we stay. Sometime the old dog he allow a dollar a day too much for me, and me workin' lika a mule. Oh, I work alla time, by God, velly little dlunk only sometime in Kamloops. And I say 'Look here, Cultus, I not care one damn, I can go. I can quit:—you pay me!' But when it came to pay out dolla he very sick, for sure. So I say, 'You be damn,' and he laughed and went away, for I had a neck-yoke in my hand, ha!"
Pete showed his teeth savagely, and the others grinned.
"We do that often: he damn me, I damn him, and mebbe Jenny and me would be there yet if he had not hit Mary with a club while I was away over to Nikola bringin' in the steers that was over the range. I come back, and I find Jenny cryin' and Mary sick and cryin', and sore all over, and Cultus hyu drunk. So I ups and say to Cultus, 'You swine, you hit my poor sister once mo' and I quit.' Then he began to cry and fetch mo' whisky and we both get drunk and very much friends, and I go to sleep, and he get ravin' and fetch a long-handled shovel and frighten Jenny here to death and he hit Mary with the flat of the shovel, and say, 'You damn klootchman, next time I give you the edge and cut hell out of you.'"