"He's no good here now," said Moleskin sadly. "We'll look for a muck-barrow and wheel him down to the hut. Didn't I always say that he would come to a bad end, him with his hurry and flurry and his frothy get-about way?"
"He saved us by his hurry, anyhow," I remarked.
We turned the man over and straightened his limbs, then hurried off for a muck-barrow. On coming back we discovered that some person had stolen the man's boots.
"They should have been taken by us before we left him," I said.
"You're damned right," assented Joe.
Several of the men gathered around, and together we wheeled poor Bill down to the hut along the rickety barrow road. His face was white under the coating of beard, and his poor naked feet looked very blue and cold. All the workmen took off their caps and stood bareheaded until we passed out of sight. No one knew whose turn would come next. When Bill was buried I wrote, at the request of Moleskin Joe, a song on the tragedy. I called the song "A Little Tragedy," and I read it to my mate as we sat together in a quiet corner of the hut.
"A LITTLE TRAGEDY.
"The sweat was wet on his steaming loins and shoulders bent and scarred,
And he dropped to earth like a spavined mule that's struck in the knacker's yard.
Bury him deep in the red, red muck, and pile the clay on his breast,