"One hundred dolla, I tink," said Jenny, and Pete's jaw dropped.
"Never min', we get a good one for five dolla," said Jenny, and she kissed Pete for that five "dolla" one just as he filled his pipe. Then the whistle of the Mill squealed "Come out, come out, come out o' that, Pete, Pe—etc!" and Pete gave his klootchman a hug and ran across the hot sawdust to the Mill.
"Pete very good man, I won't kiss no one but Pete," said Jenny. "I almos' swear it on the Bible."
She was a human little thing, and Pete was human, poor devil. And so was George Quin, alas! And the worst of it is that we all are.
"I almos' swear it on the Bible!"
The sun burned and the water glared, and the Mill, the Stick Moola, howled and groaned and devoured some twenty thousand feet of logs that afternoon, and over the glittering river rose the white cone of Mount Baker and up the river shone the serrated peaks of the Pitt River Mountains, where Pete came from, and all the world was lovely and beautiful.
And that poor devil of a Quin sat in his office and tried to work, and had the pretty idea of Jenny in his aching mind.
"I almos' swear it on the Bible!"
Even George wanted to do the square thing, very often. But Jenny's "almos'" was hell, eh? Tilikum, we both know it!