"We do that often: he damn me, I damn him, and mebbe Jenny and me would be there yet if he had not hit Mary with a club while I was away over to Nikola bringin' in the steers that was over the range. I come back, and I find Jenny cryin' and Mary sick and cryin', and sore all over, and Cultus hyu drunk. So I ups and say to Cultus, 'You swine, you hit my poor sister once mo' and I quit.' Then he began to cry and fetch mo' whisky and we both get drunk and very much friends, and I go to sleep, and he get ravin' and fetch a long-handled shovel and frighten Jenny here to death and he hit Mary with the flat of the shovel, and say, 'You damn klootchman, next time I give you the edge and cut hell out of you.'" "He say those same words," said Jenny. "And when I wake up," Pete went on, "they tell me, and I say it no good to stay for if I stay I kill Cultus and no taffy about it. So next day I say 'Give me my money,' and he give me an order on Smith over to Kamloops, and we came down here, and now I get the job wedging-off again and that's better'n workin' for old Cultus. Gimme the bottle, Skookum, you old swine." They all had another drink. "George Quin heap berrer'n Cultus," said Skookum. "'E lika peretty girls," said Chihuahua, leering at Jenny. "'E look after klootchman alla day, eh, Joe?" Spanish Joe said that was so. "Spanish" was a real Castilian, as fair as any Swede and had golden hair and lovely skin and the blue eyes of a Visigoth, and he was a murderous hound and very good at songs and had a fine voice and could play the guitar. He had no klootchman, but there was a white woman up town who loved him and robbed her husband to give him money. "All klootchman no good," said Joe scornfully. "You're a liar," said Jenny, "but men are no good, only Pete is good sometimes, ain't you, Pete?" "Dry up," said Pete thickly, for the last drink had done for him. "You dry up. All klootchmen talk too much. You go to bed, Jenny." "I shan't," said Jenny, sulkily. So he beat her very severely, and blacked her eye, and dragged her by the gorgeous dressing-gown into the next room. As he dragged her she slipped out of the gown and they saw her for an instant white as any lily before he slammed the door on her and came out again. Joe and Chihuahua yelled with laughter, and even Skookum roused up to chuckle a little. He had been asleep, lying with his head on the insensible body of an unowned klootchman, who was a relative of Annie's. His own klootchman still sat in the corner, every now and again chanting dismally of the woes of Annawillee. Joe and Chihuahua spoke in Spanish. "She's a beauty, and George Quin will want her," said Chihuahua. "And he'll have her too, by the Mother of God," said Joe. "But klootchmen are no good. My woman up town she cries too much. And as for her husband----" He indulged in some Spanish blasphemy on the subject of that poor creature's man.