“You and Mike can knock off work here, and when your camp’s in shape you can come over and cut wood for us.  Doug, we’ll beat it and throw that woodshed together we’ve been going to build.  Think it’ll storm today, Murphy?”

Murphy stepped out where he could glimpse the southern sky, and eyed the drift of heavy clouds.  “She will not bust loose t’day, I’m thinkin’,” he decided.  “She’ll be workin’ ’erself up to the pint av shnowin’ er rainin’ er both.  Rain in the valley, shnow up here where we’re at, I’m thinkin’.  She’ll be a rip when she does bust loose, me boy, an’ ye can’t have things too tight an’ shnug.”

“I believe yuh.  Come on, Doug.  Murphy, you can take care of the tools and cover up the hole, will you?”

“I will do that.”  Murphy grinned after the two tolerantly.  “Will I take care av me tools, an’ it buildin’ a sthorm?” he sarcastically asked the swaying bushes around him.  “An’ do I need a pilgrim to remind me av that?  An’ thim wit’ no wood, I dunno, whin they shud have thurrty tier at the very least, sawed an’ sphlit an’ ricked up under cover where it can be got at whin they want it—­an’ they will want it, fair enough!  A-ah, but they’ll find they ain’t winterin’ in Southern Californy, before they’re t’rough with this country.  They’re not got their winter grub laid in, an’ I’ll bet money on’t, an’ no wood, an’ they’re like t’ be shnowed in here, whin no rig will come up thot grade wit’ a load an’ I don’t care how much they’ll pay t’ have it hauled, an’ them two not able t’ pack grub on their backs as I’ve done manny’s the time, an’ them wimmin wantin’ all the nicks Lee’s got in his sthores!  Cake an’ pie, it’s likely they must have in the house er they think they’re not eatin’.”  Murphy talked as he worked, putting the tools in a pile ready to be carried to camp, picking up pieces of rope and wire and boards and nails, and laying a plank roof over the windlass and weighting it with rocks.  Mike had gone pacing to camp, swinging his arms and talking to himself also, though his talk was less humanly kind under the monotonous grumble.  Mike was gobbling under his breath, something about law-suing anybody that come botherin’ him an’ tryin’ t’ arrest him for nothin’.  But Murphy continued to harp upon the subject of domestic preparedness.

“An’ that leanto them men sleep in is no better than nothin’ an’ if it kapes the rain off their blankets it’ll not kape off the shnow, an’ it won’t kape off the wind at all.  An’ they’ve not got the beddin’ they’ll be needin’, an’ I’ll bet money on it.

“They should have a cellar dug back av the cabin where’s the hill the sun gets to, an’ they should have it filled with spuds an’ cabbages an’ the like—­but what have they got?  A dollar’s worth av sugar, maybe, an’ a fifty-poun’ sack av flour, an’ maybe a roll av butter an’ a table full of nicknacks which they could do without—­an’ winter comin’ on like the lope av a coyote after a rabbit, an’ them no better prepared than the rabbit,