Two and a half hours later Bulldog took up his accustomed place in line on the way to the mess hall. If he had recently gorged until he couldn’t swallow another swallow, that was not going to interfere with his doing full justice to Uncle Henry’s supper. And later, spread out at full length in the bunk room over the mess hall, he lay on his back and slept the sleep of the just. Sleeping on one’s back is said to be conducive to snoring, but Bulldog was a silent sleeper. If he was primitive in his mode of living, so, too, he was primitive in his sleeping hours. Dead to the world he was, yet ready to be instantly awake. Once upon a time a fellow convict night guard had taken the liberty to bring his stick across the soles of Bulldog’s bare feet as he lay asleep. It was a common trick, and as the sleepers were chained to their flat bunks, the guard had only to step back out of harm’s way, while the startled sleeper rubbed open his eyes and bellowed revenge to the accompaniment of catcalls from the other prisoners. But the unlucky guard who had attempted the prank at Bulldog’s expense carried an eye that squinted forever after as a warning to all and sundry that the giant was equally dangerous, asleep or awake. It must have been that Bulldog had heard the swish of the descending stick in his sleep, for the smack of it against the soles of his feet and the whoosh of his hand striking the unwitting guard had been nearly simultaneous. So Bulldog slept the sleep of the just. He was awake with the sun, and lay there for half an hour studying his toes, even as a small boy of five or six months studies them. When a man can do that intently for half an hour, his conscience isn’t bothering him. So to breakfast presently and to take his place at the head of the squad line. They were starting the new Ogeechee Canal and Bulldog knew that Captain Jim meant him to set the pace. It was an accepted fact that a squad line with Bulldog at its head got about a week and a half of digging done in a week. It was useless to try to drive labour out of Negro chain gangs, but to lead it out of them--that was different. It explained why Captain Jim needed Bulldog. Winter was coming along and the new drainage canal must be finished before the flood rains of spring. The beginning was to be made some three miles away from camp, and they marched out in formation, five men to a squad. The chain-gang squad of five meant two ahead, two behind, and one in the middle. Each prisoner had a leg iron around his right ankle, to which was attached the four-foot squad chain. When they were on the march the squad chains of each squad were linked together in a common ring, so that if a man attempted to bolt on the road he would have to take four of his companions with him. Even if the bolt were successful, it was poor work for five men, chained together, to beat off pursuit in the swamp. When they worked, each man carried his own chain hooked to a snaffle sewed to his tunic.