From the many hours of drilling, fingers crooked, he could only straighten them by a painful effort.

A bad hand for cards, he decided gloomily, and still frowning over this he reached the door.

There he paused in instant repugnance, for the place was strange to him.
In thought and wish he was even now galloping Grey Molly over the grass along the Asper, and he had to wrench himself into the mood of the patient miner.

There lay his blankets, rumpled, brown with dirt, and he shivered at sight of them; the night had been cold.

Before he fell asleep, he had flung the magazine into the corner and now the wind rustled its torn, yellowed pages in a whisper that spoke to Gregg of the ten-times repeated stories, tales of adventure, drifts of tobacco smoke in gaming halls, the chant of the croupier behind the wheel, deep voices of men, laughter of pretty girls, tatoo of running horses, shouts which only redeye can inspire.