Darkness had closed down on the hillside, and supper was over, when
Ingleby and Leger lounged on a cedar log outside the shanty. Hetty lay
close by in the deer-hide chair, and Tomlinson had stretched his long
limbs just clear of the fire. He lay placidly smoking, with no more than
an occasional deferential glance at Hetty. Now and then the flickering
firelight touched his face and showed the harsh lines of its rugged
chiselling and the steadiness of his contemplative eyes. Tomlinson, it
was generally admitted, could do more with axe and shovel than most of
the men in that valley, but a certain deliberateness of speech and
gesture characterized him in repose. He was a man who worked the harder
when it was necessary because he seldom wasted an effort.
It was slowly he raised his head and glanced at Hetty. "The boys can get
away with another twenty loaves this week," he said. "Jake figured you'd
have seven or eight more of them from the gully workings coming in. They
told him they'd no use for flapjacks or grindstones when they could get
bread like that."
"Very well," said Hetty. "I'll have an extra batch ready on Saturday."
She cast a little quick glance at Ingleby, for it was gratifying that he
should have this testimony to the quality of her bakery, though it was
scarcely necessary. The venture had, in fact, been a success from the
commencement, and though Hetty's flour was rapidly running out she found
it just as profitable to bake what the miners brought her at a tariff
which in few other regions would have been thought strictly moderate.
She was also as popular as her bread, for she turned nobody away, though
there were men in that valley with neither money nor provisions left who
had failed to find even the colour of gold. Her boys, she said, would
strike it rich some day, and one must risk a little now and then; but it
is not given to many women to win the faith and homage accorded her by
most of them in return for a handful of flour. Tomlinson, however, had
not delivered all his message yet.
"I ran up against Wolverine Gordon yesterday," he said. "He wants more
salt in his bread. Says that sweet dough's ruining his digestion, and if
you can't fix it to suit him he'll do his own baking. I guess I'd let
the old insect have his salt by the handful."