Part 1 (2/2)

There was also so else

Little Toro, the kiddy from Cuba--”Somebody's orphan,” the Spaniards of the mine called him, with a likely hit at the truth--little Toro had been to the Lago Frio with Jiet eaten by one of the ht that very day, at closing time or thereabouts

Hitherto, Jia Verde mine, some four thousand feet above sea-level in these wilds of Asturias To be sure, he was there for his health But Mr Suineer in partnershi+p with Alfred Cayley, Jihtless ,” and the phrase had stuck Jim hadn't liked it, and tried to say so

Unfortunately, he staone off, saying he couldn't wait

_Now_ it was Jim's chance He felt that this was so, and he rejoiced in the sensation as well as in his appetite and the thought of the excellent soup, os which it was Mrs

Julish Jim in the three) at half-past one o'clock precisely

Toro hadJi that he didn't suppose any other English fellow of fifteen had had such a splendid bathe There were snow-peaks in the distance, slowlyinto that lake, which well deserved its na with the towel, ”what do you think?”

”Think?” said Jimmy ”That I--I--I--I'll punch your black head for you if you don't finish this j--j--j--job, and b--b--b--be quick about it”

He wasn't really fierce with the Cuban kiddy The Cuban kiddy hirinned as he made for Jim's shoulder

”Yes, Don Ji you a straight secret this tis about it”

Toro had picked up solish by association with the Areat war Still, it was quite understandable English

”A s--s--s--straight secret! Then j--j--just out with it, or I'll p--p--p--punch your head for that as well,” said Ji his words

He often achieved re his words He could do this best with his inferiors, when he hadn't to trouble to think ords he ought to use At school he ard for theThey didn't seem to see how he suffered in his kindly consideration of them

It was saineering shen he was at ho rather awed by hi ”so utterly utter” (as his brother said) that no fellow could listen to it without manifest pain, enerally impatience His tiht,” said Toro ”And my throat ain't drier than your back now, Don Ji to bust theto do; and they'd knifeon”

”What?” cried Ji the towel and feeling for a cigarette ”They're all so o down to Bavaro for the Saint Gavino kick-up to-morrow that they've settled to do that If there ain't no portering to do, they'll be _let_ go That's how they look at it They don't care, not a peseta between 'eht again; not theo at the wine in the valley You won't tell of me, Don Jimmy?”

”S--s--snakes!” said Jio Frio, with his coat on his ar was a quick job in those wilds, where at

”No, I won't let on!” he had cried back over his shoulder

Toro, the Cuban kiddy, sat down on the arette reflectively White folks, especially white English-speaking ones, were rather unsatisfactory He liked them, because as a rule he could trust them But Don Jimmy needn't have hurried away like that He, Toro, hoped to have had licence to draw his pay for fully another hour's enjoyable idleness As things were, however, Don Alonso, the foreman, would be sure to be down on hi the red-earth heaps and the galvanised shanties of the calaa Verde

Jim Cayley was a few moan, as he bounced into the roo up froinal] ht-