Michael had never imagined this stolid son of Charley's could show such fire. He was trembling with rage and indignation. Michael rarely lost his temper, but the blood rushed to his head in response to Potch's story. Restraint was second nature with him, though, and he waited until his own and Potch's fury had ebbed.
There was such breaking unbelief and joy in the cry. Michael turned and caught the boy's expression.
"You're coming along with me, Potch," he said.
Potch still stood regarding him with a dazed expression of worshipful homage and gratitude. Michael put out his hand, and Potch clasped it.
"You and me," he said, "we both seem to be in the same boat, Potch.... Neither of us has got a mate. I'll be wanting someone to work with now. We'd better be mates."
Michael and Potch were at work next morning as soon as the first cuckoos were calling. Michael had been at the windlass for an hour or thereabouts, when Watty Frost, who was going along to his claim with Pony-Fence Inglewood and Bully Bryant, saw Michael on the top of his dump, tossing mullock.
Pony-Fence and Bully Bryant considered, and shook their heads, smoking thoughtfully.
Snow-Shoes, where he lay sprawled across the slope of Crosses' dump, glanced up at them, and the nickering wisp of a smile went through his bright eyes. The three were standing at the foot of the dump before separating.
"Who's Michael got with him?" Pony-Fence inquired, looking at Snow-Shoes.
But the old man had turned his eyes back to the dump and was raking the earth with his stick again, as if he had not heard what was said. No one was deafer than Snow-Shoes when he did not want to hear.
Watty watched Michael as he bent over the windlass, his lean, slight figure cut against the clear azure of the morning sky.
"It's to be hoped he's got a decent mate this time--that's all," he said.
Pony-Fence and Bully were going off to their own claim when Potch came up on the rope and stood by the windlass while Michael went down into the mine.
"Well!" Watty gasped, "if that don't beat cock-fighting!"
Bully swore sympathetically, and watched Potch set to work. The three watched him winding and throwing mullock from the hide buckets over the dump with the jerky energy of a new chum, although Potch had done odd jobs on the mines for a good many years. He had often taken his father's turn of winding dirt, and had managed to keep himself by doing all manner of scavenging in the township since he was quite a little chap, but no one had taken him on as a mate till now. He was a big fellow, too, Potch, seventeen or eighteen; and as they looked at him Watty and Pony-Fence realised it was time someone gave Potch a chance on the mines, although after the way his father had behaved Michael was about the last person who might have been expected to give him that chance--much less take him on as mate. Like father, like son, was one of those superstitions Ridge folk had not quite got away from, and the men who saw Potch working on Michael's mine wondered that, having been let down by the father as badly as Charley had let Michael down, Michael could still work with Potch, and give him the confidence a mate was entitled to. But there was no piece of quixotism they did not think Michael capable of. The very forlornness of Potch's position on the Ridge, and because he would have to face out and live down the fact of being Charley Heathfield's son, were recognised as most likely Michael's reasons for taking Potch on to work with him.