"Perfectamente," said Joe, "you spik truth. All women are bad." Scotty managed to jam Joe in the pit of the stomach with the handle of the huge wooden shovel with which he was feeding the greedy fires. "Beg your pardon," said Scotty with a grin, "but they arn't all bad." "Every damn one," said Joe, writhing. "All klootchmen no good, I say," Pete cried once more. "You had a mother, lad," said the Engineer severely. Pete shook his head. "That all light, Mr. Engineer, but she no good neither. She sell my poo' damn sister to the man at Kamloops that had the ranche Cultus Muckamuck Quin got now, sell her for two dolla, I tink. And now Cultus got her too." Scotty having no more remarks to make, yanked the whistle lanyard. It was six o'clock. "This is a hell of a country for a mahn wi' ony releegion in him," said Scotty. He turned savagely on his Chinese helper. "Now then, Fan, you wooden image, get a move on you: hump yersel', man, or I'll scupper you." The gift of work to unhappy mortals is that they cannot work and be wholly unhappy, and Pete sucked a grim kind of pleasure out of the labour that was his, and found some anodyne in it for the aching wound he bore in his foolish childish heart. That day the labour was great, for Ginger White had a mind to set the pace and make it fiery. It was, as the men knew, one of his bad, his wicked days, such a day as that on which he had driven Pete's predecessor to a standstill. When Ginger's face was tallow against his fiery beard they knew what to expect, and got it every time. It was said that on these occasions he had quarrelled with his wife, but the truth is he had a vicious nature and a love of work together. It gave him pleasure to see the great saws do their work, and a greater pleasure still to see a man turn white and fail. But now he had Pete, not Simmons, and the devil himself at the Saws would not have broken Pete that day. For there was a hard devil in his heart, and he grinned savagely as he saw White's motions get every minute quicker and quicker. He nudged Skookum Charlie. "This Ginger White have one bad day. The debbel, how he go. You see!" They saw. He cut them wicked slabs, slabs that had an unholy weight, with all of it in the butt. When they fell they dropped between the skids and got up and kicked. One struck Skookum on the nose and made it bleed, another threw Pete. But though they both knew that Ginger gave it them hot and heavy and wasted wood in slabs to do it, they made no sign. This was a day that no one would be beaten. All the men knew by instinct and by knowledge that this was to be a day of hell, when the cut would be great and Ginger would go home half dead with his endeavours to work them up. They set their teeth, even as the saws' teeth were set in another fashion, and prepared to chew the lumber that he hurled to them.