The boys had no choice but to listen. Bob, who was nearest the hedge, could look through a small opening and plainly see the two ruffians seated on the ground with heads close together in deep and dark converse with each other.
They were an ill-assorted pair. Their different nationality made them totally unlike in outward appearance—one a great, ruddy, burly Irishman, the other a slight, dark, wiry Frenchman. Utterly opposed to each other by nature, their common desire for vengeance had drawn them together and, for the time being, made them pals.
At first, their one thought and desire was vengeance. They had room in their angry hearts for nothing else. Both were naturally cruel, and on the day of their discharge they had shaken angry fists at the camp, and through the days of idleness that had followed they had thought only of the punishment they would wreak on their enemy, the foreman.
To waylay him in the woods, to get their eager hands upon him, to beat him into pulp, and in the end perhaps to take his life—this had been their one object and aim.
But now a new element entered into their desire for vengeance. For days after their discharge they had roamed the woods. At first they had made a visit to the county town, and there with the reckless improvidence of their kind, had feasted and drunk and gambled away every dollar of their pay, drawn on that last day in camp, and then had taken to the woods.
Since then they had lived on berries and roots, and an occasional bird which they had managed to snare. With a bent pin and a line made of twisted fibers of long grass, and with worms for bait, they had caught some fish, but their living was scanty and poor.
Accustomed to the plain, but well cooked and abundant food of the camp, days of this meagre diet had told upon the two. Especially was it felt by O’Brien, for his great, muscular frame needed nourishing food, and food in plenty.
While their tobacco lasted, it had not been so bad, but as their hunger grew, their ferocity grew, and, added to their desire to punish the man they considered their enemy (it never occurred to them that they were their own worst enemies) came a determination to obtain money, no matter how.
Why should other people be sitting down three times a day to tables loaded with things good to eat and drink—the very thought made their mouths water!—and lie down every night on soft, comfortable beds, while they nearly starved and slept on the hard ground at night?
The thought of Flannigan having plenty of food and tobacco and all other needed comforts filled them with ferocious rage and hate.