human
All cattlemen on deck! Then he stood back. He seemed to pay hardly any heed to whether they came promptly or leisurely. To Rafferty's mind they did not come quickly enough, so he leapt to the companion-way and asked of the evil-smelling darkness below many insulting questions. His vocabulary put to the blush the vocabularies of all the others. Candlass glanced sideways at him, and, stepping a little more close, in a low voice, that caused Rafferty to come near to hear what was said, engaged him in conversation. Rafferty, drunk or sober, was rather proud of his job; he had climbed to the top, as may the reporter to be editor, the bank clerk to be manager, the stable mucker to be ranch foreman. But Candlass was a celebrated boss, and it was an honour for any other boss to chat with him, or to sail with him. Even Rafferty drunk did not forget that, and Rafferty only three sheets in the wind, as he was at present, was none averse to letting the men come up as they would, when all could see the terms he was on with Candlass. Not that his ways were Candlass's ways; he esteemed Candlass's control, but would not imitate--indeed could not. There was always some intimidating weapon in Rafferty's hand; but Candlass's hands generally lay negligently one within the other behind his back. One may suspect that he felt a slight pity for Rafferty rather than contempt, and would have been sorry to see him do a murder in his cups; looked upon him somewhat as Scholar, coming aft now from the sheep-cotes amidships, looked upon the large, dishevelled Mike who emerged on to the deck, scoop-cap awry on his ruffled hair, eyes puckered to the sunlight after the dusk of the cabin, licking dry lips, working dry tongue, disgustedly grunting
gpt
Ach! over his condition and his stale feeling--referred to by callous topers as
human
Candlass produced a coin and handed it, perhaps by some convention of courtesy, to Rafferty; Rafferty rejected it with a
gpt
Go ahead!
human
Heads!
gpt
All right. You can pick your own men now! for these were