Frederick Niven

“ Behind him, and below, lay the meadow—Midway Meadow—with its black marks of old fires, its torn river bed, its moldering shacks, and Flannigan's. The horses' hoofs fell muffled, the wheels rolled silently in the foot of dust that was the road. The only noise of his progress was the squeak of cargo rubbing, box against box, and an occasional clink of chains when the whiffle swung.
"Queer about that checkerboard!"
It suddenly struck him that there was, perhaps, a game a man could play by himself on a checkerboard. ”

“ The sheep sniffled and bleated occasionally under securely-lashed dodgers that now covered the tops of all the pens. They saw his feet and thrust out their black faces, wrinkled their noses, shivered and withdrew. It was near their feed time. (Mike and Cockney, with two or three others, saw to them daily on their way back, after having tended the cattle.) Candlass tilted his body along, looking left and right to see where his man might be hiding, the ship ever and again pausing in the midst of a rise, pausing much as men on deck did at a more violent and unexpected roll and kick. ”

“ We all allows by our silent smoking that we realizes Steve has the floor, and the right to the floor, by reason of knowledge of his subject; and we kind of makes annoyed gestures, scratches our heads, shifts our positions, when little Fred holds up Steve's tendency to talk. But it is this Fred after all who draws him out full length of his rope, to talk from personal experience, clean out o' his heart, by insisting, the way a guy like that does, on a p'int we thinks is passed over.
“All the same,” he says, “I can't understand a white man ever marrying one, any more than George Harrop can.” ”

“ The cattle were not in a bad plight at all; they had their four legs to stand upon, and propped each other as well. It was those upon the lee side that gave most concern to Candlass now. He carried the lamp high, casting weird shadows, and directing the men in the slacking of a rope here, the hauling up of one yonder. There was no doubt that the gale was rising; sailors were battening down a hatch overhead, and their voices, as they hailed each other before they got the whole hatch covered, shutting out the night, came down broken and blown. ”

“ An air of belligerence still hung about the boat, thick as the smell of the cattle. The twelve stallions, ranged amidships, bickered like the men. The alleyway before them was narrow; they could stretch their necks all the way across it, and they were everlastingly doing so—not in the friendly way of the long-horned steers that stretched out merely to draw attention to themselves lest somebody might have food for them, but stretched out crankily, even at their mildest, and at their worst, devilishly. ”

“ They might, in the morning, "have one" at Flannigan's, but that was about the extent of their visits; for Flannigan's depressed everybody. It wasn't a hotel; it was a relict. That checkerboard on the table in the corner of the barroom was the most tragic of checkerboards. The most stolid of men would turn, with a shudder, from the checkerboard. And yet it was the only amusement in sixty- two miles.
It used to haunt and fascinate Bill Davies on the infrequent occasions that loneliness, or drizzle, prompted him to go over to Flannigan's after having made camp. ”

“ Jack—he who spoke French—and Jack's partner sat laughing and talking alone, telling tales of adventurous lives one to the other, the glitter of those who look upon the wine while it is red still in their eyes, and as they sat nursing their knees, and colloguing, the wind plucked the frayed edges of their pants. Jack pulled his hat down upon his head with a gesture in keeping with that manner of his as of a dandy in his sphere. It is not to be imagined that he had "come down." Men do come down, of course. ”

“ Before the cheering was over a little unpleasantness began between Mike and Michael. In all societies, in all walks of life, there are certain statements that are considered insulting; but statements that in one stratum are considered insulting are, in another, looked upon as merely amusing; in yet another they are unheard, unknown, and so there is no opinion on them. What should a passivist, in any walk of life, do when some neighbour of his paddock discharges at him the supreme term of contempt of that special paddock? ”

“ There are not always freighters there, of course; but since the Spring Lake mines opened up, to work steadily day and night, the chances are in favor of seeing, dotting the little pocket valley at Midway, the twinkling camp fires of the freighters outspanned for the night there. Sometimes the only light in the valley is the dropped yellow star of Buck Flannigan's "hotel"—the only one between Ridge and Spring Lake. ”

“ But we evades unpleasantness, being in the mood for a soc'able evening, with the snow flying straight along outside and the stove red-hot inside. If it had only been the little machine man—this here Fred—who had made aspersive remarks about squaw men—which department of Injun talk we sure touches on in the course of our palaver—maybe Steve would never have spoken about his Injun maid. But George Harrop, with more intelligence, he promulgates his idee on that topic. ”

“ If a man happened to lean against their pen, he would be reminded of where he was, not by a prod of a horn, but by a ringed nose nuzzling into the hands held behind.
After the glorious scent of balsam, blown out to us from the south shore, became so thin it was scarcely perceptible amid the smell of beasts, the whoop of the siren, thrilling the decks, on and on, was added to the lowing of the steers and the bleating of sheep. ”

“ The night-watchman, who slept away most of the day in Rafferty's cabin, was the most objectionable sight on deck. He always appeared at meal times, scooped up more than his share, then strolled about for a little while for a constitutional, but was never spoken to. As the days wore on, however, he spoke to others in a manner horribly blending intimidation and fawning, his great moustache waving. ”

“ The shivers ran again in Bill Davies' spine, and he could explain them to himself this time—not with utter conviction, however—as being caused by that unwarned and dismal cry. Any fellow feels the melancholy unpleasantness of coyotes' howls, be he lean or fat, town bred or mountain bred. ”

“ A man suddenly appeared, jumping up on top of the sheep pens, tapping with his toe before him, then stepping, to be sure he stood on firm board top and not on tarpaulin cover, turned the top of a ventilator, disappeared, bobbed up again, revealed against the starry sky, or at any rate revealed from his head down to about his knees, the wind pluck-pluck-plucking at his short jacket. ”

“ The man in the jersey, who had been standing like a squat effigy, moved to a rope by which this little craft was moored alongside, pressed feet to the bulwark, hung on to the rope so that the great hull of the Glory (she looked a massive thing again) loomed close and they could stretch out to the rope ladder. Rafferty above hauled in Four Eyes' trunk with great vehemence, that "poor feller" standing by like a great child watching the rough-handling of a toy. They swarmed on deck again. ”

“ Michael repeated.
Mike shook his head, as if a fly had landed on his face.
"Eh?" said Michael.
Mike looked down upon his stubby and sturdy compatriot as a Saint Bernard dog looks down on a snarling Pomeranian between its forepaws.
"I am a seaman," he replied at last.
"You're a liar!" said Michael, which in that stratum of society is no more considered, even by those who are not passivists, as a call for the mailed fist than, in another, is "Pardon me—have you verified that?" ”

“ Lamplight and daylight blent in the waterfront streets, and as the little crowd of men left the more open wharf front, where there was also some reflected last daylight from the docks and the river, a looker-on might have been touched deeply, seeing the quick-going day, the gathering shadows in the gulches of the streets, the lighting up of the saloons, and that knot of men, more homeless than sparrows, drifting across the twilight. ”

“ Harry, the crazy fellow, sat up with tousled hair and gibbered profanity at Rafferty, but Rafferty was nearly as crazy as he.
"Well, you're a grown man!" said he. "Take that!" and with a mighty quick action he flung his hand outside the cabin door, grabbed thence a pitchfork that he had left there on entering, and thrust at Harry with it. Harry put up his hand to protect himself, and the prong jabbed. He rolled over to get out of his bunk upon the other side, being in one of those amidships. ”

“ The night-watchman stepped aside, and when Jack turned at the end of that walk the watchman was scuttling down the companion way like a rabbit into a burrow.
Nobody congratulated Jack in words. He was a dark horse. He was one of themselves, but except with Johnnie he was not a clubable young man. Men like Cockney, men like Mike, never spoke to him, nor he to them. Sometimes, in the morning, after the watering was over, if he met Scholar's eye, he would give his head a little jerk to left and say: "Hallo!" ”

“ He bent down there in the attitude of a boy at leapfrog, and as he lit his pipe, expending many matches, could only think to himself: "That is a dangerous young man."
Scholar, who had no distaste for the appearance of the Man with the Hat, marching to and fro on the swinging deck later on, enjoying the pillar of smoke rolling out in the deepening purple night, enjoying the wind, enjoying the sweep of the masts that gave the stars, as they came out, an appearance as of rushing up and down the sky, commented, in passing the Man with the Hat: "Bit of wind." ”

“ The "Push" came to a halt before the Board of Trade building. The less juvenile, and the elders, looked broodingly at it. The younger fry sparred, and danced, and fought for possession of the mouth organ. Now and then a man who leant against a wall of the neighbourhood would catch the eye of one of the youths in the crowd and nod amiably, and the man nodded at would either look away quickly, or would tauten his legs and chuck his chest a little, look up the wall behind the man who had pretended to be an acquaintance, slow, casual, and so extricate himself. ”

“ In plunged Rafferty, wire rope in hand, and roaring: "Tumble up, the lower deck"! Some of the men woke, thinking it was morning.
"Come on, you fellows!" Rafferty said, and they followed him. Mike wakened.
"I just tell you fellows right now," he said, "you can confine your letting loose of the steers in the darkness of the night to your own deck, or there'll be some slaughtering done. Mind! Now when I say a thing I mane it!"
The pacific men of the main deck thought to themselves: "Oh, Lord! There'll be a free fight with all that lower deck crowd." ”

“ There was always some intimidating weapon in Rafferty's hand; but Candlass's hands generally lay negligently one within the other behind his back. One may suspect that he felt a slight pity for Rafferty rather than contempt, and would have been sorry to see him do a murder in his cups; looked upon him somewhat as Scholar, coming aft now from the sheep-cotes amidships, looked upon the large, dishevelled Mike who emerged on to the deck, scoop-cap awry on his ruffled hair, eyes puckered to the sunlight after the dusk of the cabin, licking dry lips, working dry tongue, disgustedly grunting "Ach!" ”