disappeared into the
kitchen, reappearing a moment later with her bare arms as fresh and as
rosy as her cheeks, from their friction with a clean crash towel.

"Well!" she continued, "I jumps into me bonnet yisterday, and over I
goes to the fort; an' I up an' says to Duffy, 'I can't wait for the
quartermaster. When's that coal a-comin'?' An' he says, 'In a couple of
weeks.' An' I turned onto him and says: 'Ye're a pretty loafer to take
the bread out of Tom Grogan's children's mouths! An' ye want Dan McGaw
to do the haulin', do ye? An' the quality of the coal'll be all right
if he gits it! An' there's sure to be twenty-five dollars for ye, won't
there? If I hear a word more out of ye I'll see Colonel Howard sure,
an' hand him this letter.' An' Duffy turned white as a load of lime, and
says, 'Don't do it, for God's sake! It'll cost me m' place.' While I was
a-talkin' I see a chunker-boat with the very coal on it round into the
dock with a tug; an' I ran to the string-piece and catched the line, and
has her fast to a spile before the tug lost head-way. Then I started for
home on the run, to get me derricks and stuff. I got home, hooked up by
twelve o'clock last night, an' before daylight I had me rig up an' the
fall set and the buckets over her hatches. At six o'clock this mornin' I
took the teams and was a-runnin' the coal out of the chunker, when down
comes Mr.--Daniel--McGaw with a gang and his big derrick on a cart." She
repeated this in a mocking tone, swinging her big shoulders exactly as
her rival would have done.

"'That's me rig,' I says to him, p'intin' up to the gaff, 'an' me coal,
an' I'll throw the fust man overboard who lays hands on it!' An' then
the sergeant come out and took McGaw one side an' said somethin' to him,
with his back to me; an' when McGaw turned he was white too, an' without
sayin' a word he turned the team and druv off. An' just now I met Mr.
Crane walkin' down, lookin' like he had lost a horse. 'Tom Grogan,' he
says,'I hate to disappoint ye, an' wouldn't, for ye've always done me
work well; but I'm stuck on the coal contract, an' the sergeant can put
me in a hole if ye do the haulin'.' An' I says, 'Brace up, Mr. Crane,
there's a hole, but ye ain't in it, an' the sergeant is. I'll unload
every pound of that coal, if I do it for nothin', and if that sneak in
striped trousers bothers me or you, I'll pull him apart an' stamp on
him!'"

Through all her talk there was a triumphant good humor, a j