The Return of Blue Pete

He could hear her moving about her room, sliding drawers, lifting and dropping the implements of her evening toilet.

"Not another woman in a hundred miles," he grumbled, "at least not one that matters. And yet I got to go through this waiting every night!"

She laughed, her mouth full of the coil of her hair.

His eye moved upward from the camp and settled on one lone shack that crowned a promontory overlooking the ugly scene below.

"Koppy's at home," he called.

"Some day you'll find out something about your underforeman," she teased.

"I wish I could," he returned so viciously that she laughed aloud.

"You've been wishing it a long time, but to date he seems innocent enough. You don't need to care so long as he turns up to work every morning."

"Innocent?" He snorted. "Them damn Poles can't be innocent. Ever since them horses began to go-- If we could only do without the damn heathen!"

"But you damn well can't.