What's he been doing?"

"Doing?" yelled the contractor. "Didn't you see that whole
window--didn't you--"

"We don't shoot men for that."

Tressa came to the rescue:

"He's an Indian, one of the bohunks. I didn't know he'd done anything.
We were talking to him when you came. Daddy wanted to make him
underforeman, but he refused. And now"--she peered in awe over the
edge--"he's killed."

"Guilty conscience, I guess," commented the Sergeant. "Lots of them
are taken that way when they see the uniform--though I don't recall
quite such a sudden and successful attempt at suicide."

"Suicide!" snorted Torrance, who was lying down where he could see the
scene below. "Suicide nothing! That chap's a human cat--or he ain't
human at all. He came up by the trestle; this is just another way to
get down. Look at that dust! He's not falling, not him! He's just
kicking up a dust so we can't see, and all the time he's breaking his
up record. He's not dropping fast enough to hurt himself . . . but, by
hickory! where he finds toe-holds on that cliff beats me."

They were all craning over. Down below, the bohunks were scattering
like frightened sheep, while those further out gaped. The dust-cloud
struck the bottom and spread, and out of it emerged a running figure,
limping a little but covering the ground with surprising speed. Tag
ends of clothing hung to him, and from head to foot he was the colour
of earth.

Torrance cheered. "Hurrah! I'm surer than ever I made no mistake
offering him the job . . . and I'll pay for the window myself, by
hickory!"

Mahon was watching him with a faint smile.

"It's a lively reception to give a stranger. Is there more to the
programme?"

"If there is," replied Torrance, "I'm only one of the innocent
audience. That guy's beaten the limit three times inside as many
hours. He's a continuous performance. He did a few careless flips and
tumbles down there to get out of the way of that pole, then he swings
up by way of the trestle while you'd say 'Jack Robinson.' He's gone
down again," he added, measuring with his eye the dizzy height, "by way
of Providence. Wouldn't you say he'd got the wrong job out here, even
if he is an Indian?"

"Was it Mavy?" asked Constable Williams.

"We call him Mavy, but he's a blooming sparrow, or a toy balloon."

"An Indian who's been working on construction," Williams explained to
his superior, "a strange, silent fellow. Always seemed a bit a