"You seem to know a heap," Mansell observed sarcastically. Then he became a shade more interested. "What's the 'good thing'?"
Jim poured some brandy out for himself, at the same time, as though unconsciously, replenishing the other's glass liberally. The sawyer watched him while he waited for a reply, and suddenly a thought occurred to his none too ready brain.
"Drink, eh?" he laughed mockingly, as though answering a challenge on the subject. "Drink? Say, who's been doing the drink since you got back? Folks says as your gal has gone right back on you, that ther' wench as you was a-sparkin' 'fore we lit out. An' it's clear along of liquor. They say you're soused most ev'ry night, an' most days too. You should git gassin'—I don't think."
The man's mean face was alight with brutish glee. He felt he had handed the other a pretty retort. And in his satisfaction he snatched up his glass and drank off its contents at a gulp. Indifferent to the gibe, Jim smiled his satisfaction as he watched the other drain his glass.
"You've got no work?" he demanded, as Mansell set it down empty.
"Sure I ain't," the other grinned. "An'," he added, under the warming influence of the spirit, "I ain't worritin' a heap neither. My credit's good with the boardin'-house boss. Y' see," he went on, his pride of craft in his gimlet eyes, "I'm kind o' known here for a boss sawyer. When they want sawyers there's allus work for Dick Mansell."
"Your credit's good?" Truscott went on, ignoring the man's boasting. "Then you have no money?"
"I allows the market's kind o' low."
Mansell's mood had become one of clumsy jocularity under the influence of the brandy.
"If you can get work so easily, why don't you?" Truscott demanded, filling the two glasses again as he spoke.