The valley was very still, and the drowsy fragrance of the firs crept into the dwelling; but Slavin, who would sooner have heard the clatter of shovels or the crash of a blasting charge, was not in the least deceived. He knew that unusual quietness now and then presages storm, and he had felt that there was a tension in the atmosphere for some little time. He smiled, however, when Eshelby glanced into the room.
"If they do not turn up in another minute I will walk across to the outpost with you," said the latter. "The time is up."
He spoke concisely, with a clean English intonation, and, as usual, betrayed no impatience; but Slavin fancied he was by no means pleased at the fact that a band of miners with grievances should presume to keep him waiting for even a few moments.
"I guess they'll come," he said. "If I were you I'd promise them something if it's only to humour them."
Eshelby glanced at him coldly, for he was not as a rule addicted to considering any advice that might be offered him.
"A concession," he said, "is usually regarded as a sign of wavering. In dealing with a mob of this kind firmness is necessary."
Slavin made a little gesture, and smiled in a somewhat curious fashion. He had shepherded the Blackfeet on the plains, as well as put down whisky-runners and carried out the prohibition laws, and he knew that to gain an end one must yield a point occasionally. It was, however, not his business to instruct the Crown Recorder, and Eshelby seldom deviated a hair's-breadth from the course he had once decided on.
"Well," Slavin said, "I guess I hear them, and I'll stay right where I am. They can't see me in the shadow, and if they knew I was hanging round it might worry them. You don't want to hang out a red rag when you have a difference of opinion with a bull."
He moved his chair back a little farther from the door when a murmur of voices and patter of feet came up through the dimness beneath the stunted pines, for he was quite aware that his warning was not likely to restrain Eshelby from a display of the exasperating crimson on the smallest provocation. Then he leaned forward with a quiet intentness in his eyes as a group of men came out of the shadows. They were dressed for the most part in soil-stained jean, and were all of them spare of flesh and sinewy. They had bronzed faces with a significant grimness in them, and moved with a certain air of resolution that did not astonish Slavin. They were hard men--English, Canadians, Americans, Teutons, by birth--though that meant very little to most of them then; men who had faced many perils and borne as much privation as flesh and blood is capable of. To men of their kind all countries are the same, and they have not as a rule any particular tenderness for the land which had, in their phraseology, no use for them.