He did not hear a voice which called his name, once or twice, among the jumble of sounds. Presently an odd figure came round the end of the bar 25 from a door that opened there into the mysterious back regions of the place and elbowed in to face him.
This was a little old man, weazened and bent, his unkempt head thrust forward from hunched shoulders. He dragged two grain sacks behind him, and he was so grotesquely bow-legged that the first sight of him always provoked laughter. This was old Pete the snow-packer, bound on his nightly trip to the hills. Outside his burros waited, their pack-saddles empty.
By dawn they would come down from the world’s rim, the grain sacks bulging with hard-packed snow for the cooling of Bullard’s liquor.
“Dick,” he said when he faced his employer, “here ’tis time t’ start an’ there ain’t a damned bit o’ grub put up fer me! Ef ye don’t make that pig-tailed Chink pay ’tention t’ my wants, I quit! I quit, I tell ye!”
And he emphasized his vehement protest by whirling the bags over his head and flailing them upon the floor.
A roar of laughter greeted him, which brought dim tears of indignation to his old eyes.
“Ye don’t care a damn!” he whimpered in impotent rage. “Jes’ ’cause it’s me. Ef ’twas yer ol’ Chink, now––if ’twas him, th’ ol’ he-pigtail, ye’d–––” 26
“Hold on, Pete,” said Bullard, slapping an indulgent hand on the grotesque shoulder, “You go tell Wan Lee that if he don’t put up th’ best lunch in camp for you, an’ muy pronto at that, I’ll come in an’ skin him alive. Tell him–––”
But Bullard was never to finish that sentence.
There was a sound of running horses stopping square at the rack without, the rattle of chains, the creak of saddles.