A
voice in sudden laughter boomed out. Saturday night had come. As
Whitey Wimble had predicted, the boys were showing up and Red Creek
stood ready to lose something of its brooding afternoon quiet.
Once again Packard crossed the bridge and made his way along the
echoing wooden sidewalk to the Ace of Diamonds. A dozen saddle-horses
were tied at the hitching-rail. Among them was Blenham's white-footed
bay. Up and down the street glowing cigarette ends like fireflies came
and went. In front of the saloon a number of men made a good-natured,
tongue-free crowd, most of whom had had their first drinks and were
beginning to liven up as in duty bound on a Saturday night.
A four-horse wagon came rattling into town from the east to pour out
its contents, big, husky men, at Hodges's door. Among them Packard
recognized one man. He was the lumber-camp cook from whom he had
gotten coffee and hotcakes the other day, that morning after he had
refused to accept Terry's cool invitation to breakfast.
"I'll have to look in on those fellows tomorrow," he thought as they
shouldered past, boisterous and eager. "Grandy's sure had his nerve
cutting my timber with never so much as a by-your-leave."
Their foreman was with them; one glance singled him out. He was of
that type chosen always by old man Packard to head any one of the
Packard units, a sort of confident mastery in his very stride, the
biggest man of them, unkempt and heavy, with a brutal face and hard
eyes.
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