His conductor halted at a shed entrance and indicated a weather-bronzed
individual.
"Him," he said. "And mind you come back when you're through; we all
dish in together and live pretty good."
Harry Baggs spent the long brilliant afternoon burning bunches of
condemned peach shoots. The smoke rolled up in a thick ceaseless cloud;
he bore countless loads and fed them to the flames. The hungry crawling
increased, then changed to a leaden nausea; but, accepting it as
inevitable, he toiled dully on until the end of day, when he was given
a dollar and promise of work to-morrow.
He saw, across a dingy street, a small grocery store, and purchased
there coffee, bacon and a pound of dates. Then he returned across the
Nursery to the hollow and huts. More men had arrived through the day,
other fires were burning, and an acrid odor of scorched fat and boiling
coffee rose in the delicate evening. A small group was passing about a
flasklike bottle; a figure lay in a stupor on the clay; a mutter of
voices, at once cautious and assertive, joined argument to complaint.
"Over this way," Peebles called as Harry Baggs approached. The former
inspected the purchased articles, then cursed. "Ain't you got a bottle
on you?"
But when the bacon had been crisped and the coffee turned into a
steaming thick liquid, he was amply appreciative of the sustenance
offered. They were shortly joined by Runnel, the individual with the
bluish poisoned countenance, and the elaborately ragged tramp.
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