The General Manager

Jennings and Woods were now sworn enemies and the stringing of the wires became a matter of intense interest, as this was the test which would prove the truth or fallacy of Jennings' cantankerous harping that the cross-arms were too light.

In isolated camps where there is no outside diversion such tests of opinion become momentous matters, and the present instance was no exception. Mrs. Jennings, too, had taken sides--her husband's, naturally--and the anti-Jennings faction was made to realize fully the possibilities for revenge which lie within the jurisdiction of the cook.

The alacrity with which Jennings's bride stepped into Toy's shoes convinced Bruce that the Chinaman had been correct in his assertion, but he was helpless in the circumstances, and accepted the inevitable, being able for the first time to understand why there are wife-beaters.

Jennings had opined that his bride was "lasty." She looked it. "Bertha" stood six feet in her moccasins and lifted a sack of flour as the weaker of her sex toy with a fan. She had an undershot jaw and a nose so retroussé that the crew asserted it was possible to observe the convolutions of her brain and see what she had planned for the next meal. Be that as it may, Bertha had them cowed to a man, with the possible exception of Porcupine Jim, whose hide no mere sarcasm could penetrate. There was general envy of the temerity which enabled Jim to ask for more biscuits when the plate was empty. Even Smaltz shrank involuntarily when she came toward him with her mouth on the bias and a look in her deep-set eyes which said that she would as soon, or sooner, pour the steaming contents of the coffee-pot down the back of his neck than in his cup, while Woods averred that "Doc" Tanner who fasted forty days didn't have anything on him.