The Snow-Burner

CHAPTER XI—“HELL-CAMP” COURT

“A little secret in the art of keeping brute-men satisfied with the place in life which a superior mind has allotted to them,” replied Reivers. “What is the first need of the brute? Food, of course. And the second is—fight. Give the lower orders of mankind, which is the kind to use in running a camp efficiently, plenty of food and fight, and the problem of restlessness is solved.

“That’s history, Treplin, as you know. If these foolish, timid capitalists and leaders of men who are searching their petty souls for a remedy to combat the ravages of the modern disease called Socialism only would read history intelligently, they would find the remedy made to order. Fight! War! Give the lower brutes war; let ’em get out and slaughter one another, and they’d soon forget their pitiful, clumsy attempts to think for themselves. Give them guns with a little sharp steel on the end of the barrel, turn them loose on each other—any excuse would do—and they’d soon be so busy driving said steel into one another’s thick bodies that the leaders could slip the yoke back on their necks and get ’em under hand again, where they belong.

“And they’d be happier, too, because a man-brute has got to have so much fighting, or what he calls his brain begins to trouble him; and then he imagines he has a soul and is otherwise unhappy. If there is fighting, or the certain prospect of fighting, there’s no alleged thinking. There’s the solution of all difficulties with the lower orders. Of course you’ve noticed how perfectly contented and happy the men in this camp are?” he laughed, turning suddenly on Toppy.

“Yes,” said Toppy. “Especially Rosky and his bunch.”

The Snow-Burner smiled appreciatively.

“Rosky, poor clod, hadn’t had any fighting. I’d overlooked him. Had I known that thoughts had begun to trouble his poor, half-ox brain, I’d have given him some fighting, and he’d have been as content for the next few weeks as a man who—who’s just been through delirium tremens.

“He had no object in life, you see. If he’d had a good enemy to hate and fight, he wouldn’t have been troubled by thoughts, and consequently he wouldn’t now be lying in his bunk with his leg in splints.

“There is the system in a nutshell—give a man an enemy to hate and wish to destroy, and he won’t be any trouble to you during working-hours or after. That’s what I do—pick out the ones who might get restless and set them to hating each other. And now,” he concluded, as they reached the gate and passed through, “you’ll have a chance to see how it works out.”

The big gate, opened for them by two armed guards, swung shut behind them, and Toppy once more looked around the enclosure in which he had had his first glimpse of the Snow-Burner’s system of handling the men under him. The place this morning, however, presented a different, a more impressive scene. It was all but filled with a mass of rough-clad, rough-moving, rough-talking male humanity.

Perhaps a hundred and fifty men were waiting in the enclosure. For the greater part they were of the dark, thick and heavily clumsy type that Toppy had learned to include under the general title of Bohunk; but here and there over the dark, ox-like faces rose the fair head of a tall man of some Northern breed. Slavs comprised the bulk of the gathering; the Scandinavians, Irish, Americans—the “white men,” as they called themselves—were conspicuous only by contrast and by the manner in which they isolated themselves from the Slavs.

And between the two breeds there was not much room for choice. For while the faces of the Slavs were heavy with brute stupidity and malignity, those of the North-bred men reeked with fierceness, cruelty and crime. The Slavs were at Hell Camp because they were tricked into coming and forced to remain under shotgun rule; the others were there mostly because sheriffs found it unsafe and unprofitable to seek any man whom the Snow-Burner had in his camp. They were “hiding out.” Criminals, the majority of them, they preyed on the stupid Slavs as a matter of course; and this situation Reivers had utilised, as he put it, “to keep his men content.”

Though there was a gulf of difference between the extreme types of the crowd, Toppy soon realised that just now their expressions were strangely alike. They were all impatient and excited. The excitement seemed to run in waves; one man moved and others moved with him. One threw up his head and others did likewise. Their faces were expectant and cruel. It was like the milling of excited cattle, only worse.

“Come along, Treplin,” said Reivers, and led the way toward the centre of the enclosure. The noises of the crowd, the talking, the short laughter, the shuffling, ceased instantly at his appearance. The crowd parted before him as before some natural force that brushed all men aside. It opened up even to the centre of the yard, and then Toppy saw whither Reivers was leading.

On the bare ground was roped off a square which Toppy, with practised eye, saw was the regulation twenty-four-foot prize-fight ring. Rough, unbarked tamarack poles formed the corner-posts of the ring, and the ropes were heavy wire logging-cable. A yard from one side of the ring stood a table with a chair upon it. Reivers, with a careless, “Take a seat on the table and keep your eyes open,” stepped easily upon the table, seated himself in the chair and looked amused as the men instinctively turned their faces up toward him.

“Well, men,” he said in a voice which reached like cold steel into the far corners of the enclosure, “court is open. The first case is Jan Torta and his brother Mikel against Bill Sheedy, whom they accuse of stealing ninety-eight dollars from them while they slept.”

As he spoke the names two young Slavs, clumsy but strongly built, their heavy faces for once alight with hate and desire for revenge, pushed close to one side of the ring, while on the other side a huge red-haired Celt, bloated and evil of face, stepped free of the crowd.

“Bill stole the money, all right,” continued Reivers, without looking at any of them. “He had the chance, and being a sneak thief by nature he took it. That’s all right. The Torta boys had the money; now Bill’s got it. The question is: Is Bill man enough to keep it? That’s what we’re going to settle now. He’s got to show that he’s a better man than the two fellows he took the money from. If he isn’t, he’s got to give up the money, or the two can have him to do what they want to with him. All right, boys; get ’em started there.”

At his brisk order four men whom Toppy had seen around camp as guards stepped forward, two to Sheedy, two to the Torta brothers, and proceeded first to search them for weapons, next to strip them to the waist. Sheedy hung back.

“Not two av um tuh wanst, Mr. Reivers?” he asked humbly. “One after deh udder it oughta be; two tuh wanst, that ain’t no way.”

“And why not, Bill?” asked Reivers gently. “You took it from both of them, didn’t you? Then keep it against both of ’em, Bill. Throw ’em in there, boys!”

Toppy looked around at the rows of eager faces that were pressing toward the ringside. Prize-fights he had witnessed by the score. He had even participated in one or two for a lark, and the brute lust that springs into the eyes of spectators was no stranger to him. But never had he seen anything like this. There was none of the restraint imposed upon the human countenance by civilisation in the fierce faces that gathered about this ring.

Out of the dull eyes the primitive killing-animal showed unrestrained, unashamed. No dilettante interest in strength or skill here; merely the bare bloodthirsty desire to see a fellow-animal fight and bleed. Up above, the sky was clean and blue; the rough log walls shut out the rest of the world; the breathing of a mob of excited men was the only sound upon the quiet Sunday air. It was the old arena again; the merciless, gore-hungry crowd; the maddened gladiators; and upon the chair on the table, Reivers, lord of it all, the king-man, to whom it was all but an idle moment’s play.

Reivers, above it all, untouched by it all, and yet directing and swaying it all as his will listed. Laws, rules, teachings, creeds—all were discarded. Primitive force had for the nonce been given back its rule. And over it, and controlling it, as well as each of the maddened eight-score men around the ring—Reivers.

And so thoroughly did Reivers dominate the whole affair that Toppy, sitting carelessly on the edge of the table, was conscious of it, and knew that he, too, felt instinctively inclined to do as the men did—to look to Reivers for a sign before daring to speak or make a move. The Snow-Burner was in the saddle. It wasn’t natural, but every phase of the situation emanated from his master-man’s will. It was even his wish that Toppy should sit thus at his feet and look on, and his wish was gratified.

But it was well that the visor of Toppy’s cap hid his eyes, else Reivers might have wondered at the look that flashed up at him from them.

“Throw ’em in!” snapped Reivers, and the handlers thrust the three combatants, stripped to the waists but wearing calked lumberjack shoes, through the ropes.

A cry went up to the sky from a hundred and fifty throats around the ringside—a cry that had close kinship with the joyous, merciless “Au-rr-ruh” of a wolf about to make its kill. Then an instant’s silence as the rudely handled fighters came to their feet and faced for action. Then another hideous yelp rent the still air; the fighters had come together!

“Queer ring-costumes, eh, Treplin?” came Reivers’ voice mockingly. “Our own rules; the feet as well as the hands. Lord, what oxen!”

The two Slavs had sprung upon their despoiler like two maddened cattle. Sheedy, rushing to meet them, head down, swung right and left overhand; and with a mighty smacking of hard fist on naked flesh, one Torta rolled on the ground while his brother stopped in his tracks, his arms pressed to his middle. The crowd bellowed.

“Yes, I knew Sheedy had been a pug,” said Reivers judicially.

Sheedy deliberately took aim and swung for the jaw of the man who had not gone down. The Slav instinctively ducked his head, and the blow, slashing along his jawbone, tore loose his ear. Half stunned, he dropped to his knees, and Sheedy stepped back to poise for a killing kick. But now the man who had been knocked down first was on his feet, and with the scream of a wounded animal he hurled himself through the air and went down, his arms close-locked around Sheedy’s right leg. Sheedy staggered. The ring became a little hell of distorted human speech. Sheedy bellowed horrible curses as he beat to a pulp the face that sought to bury itself in his thigh; his assailant screeched in Slavish terror; and the bull-like roar of his brother, rising to his feet with cleared senses and springing into the battle, intermingled with both. Sheedy’s red face went pale.

Around the ringside the faces of the Slavs shone with relief. The fight was going their way; they roared encouragement and glee in their own guttural tongue. The others—Irish, Americans, Scandinavians—rooting for Sheedy only because he was of their breed, were silent.

“Hang tough, Bill,” said one man quietly; and then in a second the slightly superior brains in Sheedy’s head had turned the battle. Like a flash he dropped flat on his back as his fresh assailant reached out to grip him. The furious Slav followed him helplessly in the fall; and a single gruff, appreciative shout came from the few “white men.”

For they had seen, even as the Slav stumbled, Bill Sheedy’s left leg shoot up like a catapult, burying the calked shoe to the ankle in the man’s soft middle and flinging him to one side, a shuddering, senseless wreck. The man with his arms around Sheedy’s leg looked up and saw. He was alone now, alone against the big man who had knocked him down with such ease. Toppy saw the man’s mouth open and his face go yellow.

“Na, na, na!” he cried piteously, as Sheedy’s blows again rained upon him. “I give up, give up, give up!”

He tried to bury his face in Bill’s thigh; and Bill, mad with success, strove to pound him loose.

“Kill him, Bill!” said one of the Irishmen quietly. “You got him now; kill him.”

“Stop.” Reivers did not raise his voice. He seemed scarcely interested. Yet the roars around the ring died down. Sheedy stopped a blow half delivered and dropped his arms. The Slav released his clawlike hold and ran, sobbing, toward his prostrate brother.

“All right, Bill; you keep the money—for all them,” said Reivers. “Clear out the ring, boys, and get that other pair in there.”

The guards, springing into the ring as if under a lash, picked up the senseless man and thrust him like a sack of grain through the ropes and on to the ground at the feet of a group of his countrymen. Toppy saw these pick the man up and bear him away. The man’s head hung down limply and dragged on the ground, and a thin stream of blood ran steadily out of one side of his mouth. His brother followed, loudly calling him by name.

“Very efficacious, that left leg of Bill’s; eh, Treplin?” said Reivers lightly. “Bill was the superior creature there. He had the wit and will to survive in a crisis; therefore he is entitled to the rewards of the superior over the inferior, which in this case means the ninety-eight dollars which the Torta boys once had. That’s justice—natural justice for you, Treplin; and all the fumbling efforts of the lawmakers who’ve tried through the ages to reduce life to a pen-and-paper basis haven’t been able to change the old rule one bit.

“I’ll admit that courts and all the fakery that goes with them have reduced the thing to a battle of brains, but after all it’s the same old battle; the stronger win and hold. And,” he concluded, waving his hand at the crowd, “you’ll admit that Bill, and those Torta boys wouldn’t be at their best in a contest of intelligence.”

Toppy refused Reivers the pleasure of seeing how the brutality of the affair disgusted him.

“Why don’t you follow the thing out to its logical conclusion?” he said carelessly. “The thing isn’t settled as long as the Torta boys can possibly make reprisals. To be a consistent savage you’d have to let ’em go to it until one had killed the other. But even you don’t dare to do that, do you, Reivers?”

Reivers laughed, but the look that he bent on Toppy’s bland face indicated that he was a trifle puzzled.

“Then you wouldn’t be running the camp efficiently, Treplin,” he said. “It wouldn’t make any difference if they were all Tortas; but Bill’s a valuable man. He furnishes some one a bellyful of hating and fighting every week. No; I wouldn’t have Bill killed for less than two hundred dollars. He’s one of my best antidotes for the disease of discontent.”

The guards now had pulled two other men up to the ropes and were searching and stripping them. Toppy stared at the disparity in the sizes of the men as the clothes were pulled off them. One stood up strong and straight, the muscles bulging big beneath his dark skin, his neck short and heavy, his head cropped and round. He wore a small, upturned moustache and carried himself with a certain handy air that indicated his close acquaintance with ring-events. The other man was short and dark, obviously an Italian; the skin of his body was a sickly white, his face olive green. He stood crouched, and beneath his ragged beard two teeth gleamed, like the fangs of a snarling dog.

“Antonio, the Knife-Expert, and Mahmout, the Strangling Bulgarian,” announced Reivers laughingly. “Tony tried to stick Mahmout because of a little lady back in Rail Head, and made such a poor job of it that Mahmout has offered to meet him in the ring; Tony with his knife, Mahmout with his wrestling-tricks. Start ’em off.”

The Bulgarian was under the ropes and upright in the ring before the Italian had started. He was in his stocking-feet, and despite the clumsiness of his build he moved with a quickness and ease that told of the fine co-ordination of the effective athlete. When the Italian entered the ring he held his right hand behind his back, and in the hand gleamed the six-inch blade of a wicked-looking stiletto.

A shiver ran along Toppy’s spine, but he continued to play the game.

“Evidently Mahmout isn’t a valuable man; you don’t care what happens to him,” he said.

“Not particularly,” replied Reivers seriously. “He’s a good man on the rollways—nothing extra. Still, I hardly believe Tony can kill him—not this time, at least.”

The faces around the ring grew fiercer now. Growled curses and exclamations came through clenched teeth. Here was the spectacle that the brute-spirit hungered for—the bare, living flesh battling for life against the merciless, gleaming steel.

The big Bulgarian moved neatly forward, bent over at the waist, his strong arms extended, hands open before him in the practised wrestler’s guard and attack. His feet did not leave the ground as he sidled forward, and his eyes never moved from the Italian’s right arm. The latter, snarling and panting, retreated slightly, then began to circle carefully, his small eyes searching for the opening through which he could leap in and drive home his steel.

The Bulgarian turned with him, his guard always before him, as a bull turns its head to face the circling wolf. Without a sound the knife-man suddenly stopped and lunged a sweeping slash at the menacing hands. Mahmout, grasping for a hold on hand or wrist, caught the tip of the blade in his palm, and a slow bellow of rage shook him as he saw the blood flow. But he did not lower his guard nor take his eyes from his opponent.

The Italian retreated and circled again. A horrible sneer distorted his face, and the knife flashed in the sunlight as he slashed it to and fro before the other’s hands. The crowd growled its appreciation. Three times Antonio leaped forward, slashed, and leaped back again; and each time the blood flowed from Mahmout’s slashed fingers. But the wrestler’s guard never lowered nor did he falter in his set plan of battle. He was working to get his man into a corner.

The Italian soon saw this and, leaping nimbly sidewise, lunged for Mahmout’s ribs. The right arm of the Bulgarian dropped in time to save his life, but the knife, deflected from its fatal aim, ripped through the top muscles of his back for six inches. The mob roared at the fresh blood, but Mahmout was working silently. In his spring the Italian had only leaped toward another corner of the ring.

Mahmout leaped suddenly toward him. Antonio, stabbing swiftly at the hands reached out for him, jumped back. A cry from a countryman in the crowd warned him. Swiftly he glanced over his shoulder, saw that he was cornered, and with a low, sweeping swing of the arm he threw the knife low at Mahmout’s abdomen.

The blade glinted as it flashed through the air; it thudded as it struck home; but the death-cry which the mob yelped out died short. With the expert’s quickness Mahmout had flung his huge forearms before the speeding blade. Now he held his left arm up. The stiletto, quivering from the impact, had pierced it through.

With a fierce roar Mahmout plucked out the knife, hurled it from the ring and dived forward. The Italian fought like a fury, feet, teeth and fingernails making equal play. He sank his teeth in the injured left arm. Mahmout groped with his one sound hand and methodically clamped a hold on an ankle. He made sure that the hold was a firm one; then he wrenched suddenly—once. The Italian screamed and stiffened straight up under the appalling pain. Then he fell flat to the ground, and Toppy saw that his right foot was twisted squarely around and that the leg lay limp on the ground like a twisted rag.

“Stop,” said Reivers, and Mahmout stepped back. “Take Tony’s knife away from him, boys. Mahmout wins—for the time being.”

“Inconsistent again,” muttered Toppy. “Your scheme is all fallacies, Reivers. You give Tony a knife with which he may kill Mahmout at one stroke, but you don’t let Mahmout finish him when he’s got him down. Why don’t you carry your system to its logical conclusion?”

“Why don’t I?” chuckled Reivers, stepping down from the table. “Why, simply because Signor Antonio is the camp cook, and cooks are too scarce to be destroyed unnecessarily. Now come along, Treplin. Court’s adjourned; a light docket to-day. I’ve been thinking of your wanting to learn how to run a logging-camp. I’m going to give you a change of jobs. You’ll be no good in the blacksmith-shop till your ankle’s normal again. Come along; I’ll show you what I’ve picked out for you.”

He turned away from the ring as from a finished episode in the day’s work. That was over. Whether Torta or Antonio lived or died, were whole or crippled for the rest of their lives, had no room in his thoughts. He strode toward the gate as if the yard were empty, and the crowd opened a way far before him. Outside the gate he led the way around the stockade toward where the river roared and tumbled through the chutes of Cameron Dam.

A cliff-like ledge, perhaps thirty feet in height, situated close to one end of the dam, was Reivers’ objective, and he led Toppy around to the side facing the river. Here the dirt had been scraped away on the face of the ledge, and a great cave torn in the exposed rock. The hole was probably fifty feet wide, and ran from twelve to fifteen feet under the brow of the ledge. Toppy was surprised to see no timbers upholding the rocky roof, which seemed at any moment likely to drop great masses of jagged stone into the opening beneath.

“My little rock-pile,” explained Reivers lightly. “When my brutes aren’t good I put ’em to work here. The rock goes into the dam out there. Just at present Rosky’s band of would-be malcontents are the ones who are suffering for daring to be dissatisfied with the—ah—simplicity, let us say, of Hell Camp.”

He laughed mirthlessly.

“I’m going to put you in charge of this quarry, Treplin. You’re to see that they get one hundred wheelbarrows of rock out of here per hour. You’ll be here at daylight to-morrow.”

Toppy nodded quietly.

“What’s the punishment here?” he asked, puzzled. “It looks like nothing more than hard work to me.”

Reivers smiled the same smile that he had smiled upon Rosky.

“Look at the roof of that pit, Treplin,” he said. “You’ve noticed that it isn’t timbered up. Occasionally a stone drops down. Sometimes several stones. But one hundred barrows an hour have to come out of there just the same. And those rocks up there, you’ll notice, are beautifully sharp and heavy.”

Toppy felt Reivers’ eyes upon him, watching to see what effect this explanation would have, and consequently he no more betrayed his feelings than he had at the brutal scenes of the “court.”

“I see,” he said casually. “I suppose this is why you made me read up on fractures?”

“Partly,” said Reivers. He looked up at the jagged rocks in the roof of the pit and grinned. “And sometimes an accident here calls for a job for a pick and shovel. But I’m just, Treplin; only the malcontents are put to work in here.”

“That is, those who have dared to declare themselves something besides your helpless slaves.”

“Or dared to think of declaring themselves thus,” agreed Reivers promptly.

“I see.” Toppy was looking blandly at the roof, but his mind was working busily.

“Just why do you give me charge of this hole, Reivers—if you don’t mind my asking? Isn’t it rather an unusual honour for a green hand to be put over a crew like this?”

“Unusual! Oh, how beastly banal of you, Treplin!” laughed Reivers carelessly. “Surely you didn’t expect me to do the usual thing, did you? You say you want to learn how to handle a camp like this. You’re an interesting sort of creature, and I’d like to see you work out in the game of handling men, so I give you this chance. Oh, I’ll do great things for you, Treplin, before I’m done with you! You can imagine all that I’ve got in store for you.”

The smile vanished and he turned away. He was through with this incident, too. Without another word or look at Toppy he went back to the stockade, his mind already busy with some other project. Toppy stood looking after him until Reivers’ broad back disappeared around the corner of the stockade.

“No, you clever devil!” he muttered. “I can’t imagine. But whatever it is, I promise I’ll hand it back to you with a little interest, or furnish a job for a pick and shovel.”

He walked slowly back to the blacksmith-shop. He was glad to be left alone. Though he had permitted no sign of it to escape him, Toppy had been enraged and sickened at what he had seen in the stockade. He admitted to himself that it was not the fact that men had been disabled and crippled, nor the brutal rules that had governed, nor that men had been exposed to death at the hands of others before his eyes, that had stirred him so. It was—Reivers. Reivers sitting up there on the table playing with men’s bodies and lives as with so many cards—Reivers, the dominant, lord over his fellows.

The veins swelled in Toppy’s big neck as he thought of Reivers, and his hitherto good-natured face took on a scowl that might have become some ancestral man-captain in the days of mace and mail, but which never before had found room on Toppy’s countenance—not even when the opposing half-backs were guilty of slugging. But he was playing another game now, an older one, a fiercer one, and one which called to him as nothing had called before. It was the man-game now; and out there in the old, stern forest, spurred by the challenge of the man who was his natural enemy, the primitive fighting-man in Toppy shook off the restraint with which breeding, education and living had cumbered him, and stood out in a fashion that would have shocked Toppy’s friends back East.

Near the shop he met Miss Pearson. By her manner he saw that she had been waiting for him, but Toppy merely raised his cap and made to pass on.

“Mr. Treplin!” There was astonishment at his rudeness in her exclamation.

“Well?” said Toppy.

“Your ankle?”

“Oh, yes. Pardon me for not expressing my thanks before. It’s almost well—thanks to you and Mr. Reivers.”

She made a slight shrinking movement and stood looking at him for a moment. She opened her lips, but no words came.

“Old Scotty told me about your kindness in coming to see me, you and Mr. Reivers together,” said Toppy. “It was a relief to learn that your confidence in Reivers was justified.”

She looked up quickly, straight into his eyes. A troubled look swept over her face. Then with a toss of the head she turned and crossed the road, and Toppy swung on his way to the room in the rear of the shop and closed the door behind him with a vicious slam.

CHAPTER XII—TOPPY’S FIRST MOVE

The men did not raise their heads. They quickened their stumbling steps a little, as a heavy horse shambles forward a little under the whip. One or two looked back, beyond where Toppy was walking at the side of the line. Treplin with curiosity followed their glances. A grim-lipped shotgun guard with a hideous hawk nose had emerged from the darkness, and with his short-barrelled weapon in the crook of his arm was following the line at a distance of fifty or sixty feet. Toppy halted abruptly. So did the guard.

“What’s the idea?” demanded Toppy. “Reivers send you?”

“Yes,” said the guard gruffly.

“Does it take two of us to make this gang work?” Toppy was irritated. Reivers, he knew, would have handled the gang alone.

“The boss sent me,” said the guard, with a finality that indicated that for him that ended the discussion.

The daylight now came wanly up the gap made in the forest by the brawling river, and the men stood irresolute before the quarry and peered up anxiously at the roof of the pit.

“Grab your tools,” said Toppy. “Get in there and get to it.”

The men, some of them taking picks and crowbars, some wheelbarrows, were soon ready to begin the day’s work. But there was a hitch somewhere. They stood at the entrance to the pit and did not go in. They looked up at the threatening roof; then they looked anxiously, pleadingly, at Toppy. But Toppy was thinking savagely of how Reivers would have handled the gang alone and he paid no attention.

“Get in there!” he roared. “Come on; get to work!”

Accustomed to being driven, they responded at once to his command. Between two fears, fear of the dropping rocks and fear of the man over them, they entered the quarry and began the day’s work. The guard took up a position on a slight eminence, where he was always in plain sight of the men, whether in the cave or wheeling the rock out to the dam. He held his gun constantly in the hollow of his arm, like a hunter.

Ten minutes after the first crowbar had clanged against rock in the quarry there was a rumbling sound, a crash, a scream; and the men came scrambling out in terror. Their rush stopped abruptly just outside the cave. Toppy was standing directly before them; the man with the gun had noisily cocked his weapon and brought the black barrel to bear on the heads of the men. Half of them slunk at once back into the cave. One of the others held up a bleeding hand to Toppy.

“Ah, pleess, bahss, pleess,” he pleaded. “Rock kill us next time. Pleess, bahss!”

There was a moment of silence while Toppy looked at the men’s terror-stricken faces. The shotgun guard rattled the slide on his gun. The men began to retreat into the cave, their helplessness and hopelessness writ large upon their flat faces.

“Hold on there!” said Toppy suddenly. After all, a fellow couldn’t do things like that—drive helpless cattle like these to certain injury, even possible death. “I’ll take a look in there.”

He hobbled and shouldered his way through the men and entered the pit. A few rocks had dropped from the roof, luckily falling in a far corner beyond where the men were working. But Toppy saw at once how serious this petty accident was; for the whole roof of the cave now was loosened, and as sure as the men pounded and pried at the rocks beneath they would bring a shower of stone down upon their heads.

“Like rats in a trap,” he thought. “Hi!” he called. “Get out of here. Get out!”

Down near the dam he had noticed a huge pile of old timbers which probably had been used for piling while the dam was being put in. Thither he now led his men, and shouldering the largest piece himself he hobbled back to the cave followed by the gang, each bearing a timber. A sudden change had come over the men as he indicated what he was going to do. They moved more rapidly. Their terror was gone. Some of them smiled, and some talked excitedly. Under Toppy’s direction they went to work with a vim shoring up the loosened roof of the cave. It was only a half-hour’s work to place the props so that the men working beneath were free of any serious danger from above. Toppy could sense the change of feeling toward him that had come over the men as they saw the timbers go into place, and he was forced to admit that it warmed him comfortably. They sprang eagerly to obey his slightest behest, and the gratitude in their faces was pitiful to behold.

“Now jump!” said Toppy when the roof was safely propped. “Hustle and make up the time we’ve lost.”

As he came out of the cave the place fairly rang with noise as the men furiously tore loose the rock and dumped it in the barrows. Toppy took a long breath and wiped his brow. The hawk-nosed guard spat in disgust.

“Will you do me a favour?” said Toppy, suddenly swinging toward him.

“What is it?” asked the man.

“Take a message to Mr. Reivers from me. Tell him your services are no longer required at this spot. Tell him I said you looked like a fool, standing up there with your bum gun. Tell him—” Toppy, despite his sore ankle, had swung up the rise and was beside the guard before the latter thought of making a move—“that I said I’d throw you and your gun in the river if you didn’t duck. And for your own information—” Toppy was towering over the man—“I’ll do it right now, unless you get out of here—quick!”

The guard’s shifty eyes tried to meet Toppy’s and failed. Against the Slavs he would have dared to use his gun; they were his inferiors. Against Toppy he did not dare even so much as to think of the weapon, and without it he was only a jail-rat, afraid of men who looked him in the eyes.

“The boss sent me here,” he said sullenly.

Toppy leaned forward until his face was close to the guard’s. The man shrank.

“Duck!” said Toppy. That was all. The guard moved away with an alacrity that showed how uncomfortable the spot had become to him.

“You’ll hear about this!” he whined from a distance.

And Toppy laughed, laughed carelessly and loudly, rampant with the sensation of power. The men, scurrying past with barrows of rock, noted the retreat of the guard and smiled. They looked up at Toppy with slavish admiration, as lesser men look up to the champion who has triumphed before their eyes. One or two of the older men raised their hats as they passed him, their Old-World serf-like way of showing how they felt toward him.

“Jump!” ordered Toppy gruffly. “Get a move on there; make up that lost time.”

Reivers had said that a hundred barrows an hour must be dumped into the dam. With a half hour lost in shoring up the roof, there were fifty loads to be caught up during the day if the average was to be maintained. Carefully timing each load and keeping tally for half an hour, Toppy saw that a hundred loads per hour was the limit of his gang working at a normal pace. To get out the hundred loads they must keep steadily at work, with no time lost because of the falling rocks from above.

He began to see the method of Reivers’ apparent madness in placing him in charge of the gang. With the gang working in the dead, terrorised fashion that had characterised their movements before the timbers were in place, Toppy knew that he would have failed; he could not have got out the hundred loads per hour. Reivers would have proved him to be his inferior; for Reivers, with his inhumanity, would have driven the gang as if no lives nor limbs hung on the tissue.

Toppy smiled grimly as he looked at his watch and marked new figures on the tally sheet. The men, pitifully grateful for the protecting timbers, had taken hold of their work with such new life that the rock was going into the dam at the rate of one hundred and twenty loads an hour.

“Move number one!” muttered Toppy, snapping shut his watch. “I wonder what the Snow-Burner’s come-back will be when he knows. Hey, you roughnecks! Keep moving, there; keep moving!”

The men responded cheerfully to his every command. They could gladly obey his will; they were safe under him; he had taken care of them, the helpless ones. That evening, when they filed back into the stockade under Toppy’s watchful eye, one of the older men, a swarthy old fellow with large brass rings in his ears, sank his hat low as he passed in.

“Buna nopte, Domnule,” he said humbly.

“What did he say?” demanded Toppy of one of the young men who knew a little English.

“Plees, bahss; old man, he Magyar,” was the reply. “He say, ‘Good night, master.’”

Toppy stood dumfounded while the line passed through the gate.

“Well,” he said with a grin, “what do you know about that?”

CHAPTER XIII—REIVERS REPLIES

There was nothing in Toppy’s manner, however, to indicate his feelings as he followed the line to the quarry. Toppy allowed Sheedy’s swagger, by which he plainly indicated that he was hunting for trouble, to go as if unobserved. Sheedy, being extremely simple of mind, leaped instantly to the conclusion that Toppy was afraid of him and swaggered more insolently than ever. He was in an irritable mood this morning, was Bill Sheedy; and as soon as the gang was out of sight of the stockade—and, thought Toppy bitterly, therefore out of possible sight of Reivers—he began to vent his irritation upon his fellow-workmen.

He shouldered them out of his way, swore at them, threatened them with his fists, kicked them carelessly. There was no finesse in Bill’s method; he was mad and showed it. When the daylight came up the river sufficiently strong to begin the day’s work, Bill had worked himself up to a proper frame of mind for his purpose. He stood still while the other men willingly seized their tools and barrows and tramped into the quarry.

Toppy apparently did not notice. So far as he indicated by his manner he was quite oblivious of Sheedy’s existence. Bill stood looking at Toppy with a scowl on his unpretty face, awaiting the order to go in with the other men. The order did not come. Toppy was busy directing the men where to begin their work. He did not so much as look at Bill. Bill finally was forced to call attention to himself.

“——!” he growled, spitting generously. “Yah ain’t goin’ tuh git me tuh wurruk in no hole like that.”

“All right, Bill,” said Toppy instantly. “All right.”

Bill was staggered. His simple mind failed utterly to comprehend that there might lie something behind Toppy’s apparently humble manner. Bill could see only one thing—the straw-boss was afraid of him.

“Yah —— know it, it’s all right!” he spluttered. “If it ain’t I’d —— soon make it all right.”

“Sure,” said Toppy, and without looking toward Bill he hurried into the quarry to see how the timbers were standing the strain. Bill stood puzzled. He had bluffed the straw-boss, sure enough; but still the thing wasn’t entirely satisfactory. The boss didn’t seem to care whether he worked or whether he loafed. Bill refused to be treated with such little consideration. He was of more importance than that.

“Hey, you!” he called as Toppy emerged from the pit. “I’m going to wheel rock down to the dam, that’s what I’m going tuh do. Going to wheel it; but yuh ain’t goin’ tuh make me go in there and dig it. See? I’m going to wheel rock.”

Now for the first time Toppy seemed to consider Bill.

“What makes you think you are?” he said quietly. He was looking at his watch, but Bill noticed that in spite of his sore ankle and cane the boss had managed to move near to him in uncannily swift fashion.

“You know you can’t work here now,” Toppy continued before Bill’s thick wits had framed an answer. “You won’t go into the quarry, so I can’t use you.”

Bill stared as if bereft of all of his faculties. The boss had slipped his watch back into his pocket. He had turned away.

“Can’t use me—can’t——Say! Who says I can’t work here?” roared Bill, shaking his fists. He was standing on the plank on which the wheelbarrows were rolled out of the cave, blocking the way of the men with the first loads of the day.

“Look out, Bill!” said Toppy softly, turning around. Instinctively Bill threw up his guard—threw it up to guard his jaw. Toppy’s left drove into his solar plexus so hard that Bill seemed to be moulded on to the fist, hung there until he dropped and rolled backward on the ground.

“Get along there!” commanded Toppy to the wheel-barrowmen. “The way’s clear. Jump!”

Grinning and snatching glances of ridicule at the prostrate Sheedy, they hurried past. They dumped their loads in the dam and came back with empty barrows, and still Sheedy lay there, like a dumped grain-sack, to one side of their path. The flat faces of the men cracked with grins as they looked worshipfully at Toppy.

“Jump!” said he. “Get a move on, you roughnecks”

And they grinned more widely in sheer delight at his rough ordering.

Bill Sheedy lay for a long time as he had fallen. The blow he had stopped would have done for a pugilist in good condition, and Sheedy’s midriff was soft and fat. Finally he raised his head and looked around. Such surprise and wobegoneness showed in his expression that the grinning Slavs laughed outright at him. Bill slowly came to a sitting posture and drew a hand across his puzzled brow while he looked dully at the laughing men and at Toppy. Then he remembered and he dropped his eyes.

“Get on your way, Bill,” said Toppy casually. “If you’re not able to walk, I’ll have half a dozen of the men help you. You’re through here.”

Bill lurched unsteadily to his feet and staggered away a few steps. That terrific punch and the iron-calm manner of the man who had dealt it had scared him. His first thought was to get out of reach; his second, one of anger at the Bohunks who dared to laugh at him, Bill Sheedy, the fighting man!

But the fashion in which the men laughed took the nerve out of Bill. They were laughing contemptuously at him; they looked down upon him; they were no longer afraid. And there were a dozen of them, and they laughed together; and Bill Sheedy knew that his days as camp bully were over. The straw-boss was looking at him coldly, and Bill moved farther away. Fifteen minutes later the straw-boss, who had apparently been oblivious of his presence, swung around and said abruptly:

“What’s the matter, Bill? Why don’t you go back to Reivers?”

Bill’s growled reply contained several indistinct but definitely profane characterisations of Reivers.

“I can’t go back to him,” Sheedy said sullenly.

“Why not?” laughed Treplin. “He’s your friend, isn’t he? He let you keep the money you’d stolen, and all that.”

“Keep——!” growled Sheedy. “He’s got that himself. Made me make him a present of it, or—or he’d turn me over for a little trouble I had down in Duluth.”

Toppy stiffened and looked at him carefully.

“Telling the truth, Bill?”

“Ask him,” replied Sheedy. “He don’t make no bones about it; he gets something on you and then he grafts on you till you’re dry.”

Toppy stood silent while he assimulated this information. His scrutiny of Sheedy told him that the man was telling the truth. He felt grateful to Sheedy; through him he had got a new light on Reivers’ character, light which he knew he could use later on.

“Through making an ass of yourself here, Bill?” he asked briskly. Bill’s answer was to hang his head in a way that showed how thoroughly all the fight was taken out of him.

“All right, then; grab a wheelbarrow and get into the pit. Keep your end up with the other men and there’ll be no hard feelings. Try to play any of your tricks, and it’s good night for you. Now get to it, or get out.”

Sheedy’s rush for a wheelbarrow showed how relieved he was. He had been standing between the devil and the deep sea—between Reivers with his awful displeasure and Toppy with his awful punch; and he was eager to find a haven.

“I ain’t trying any tricks,” he muttered as he made for the quarry. “The Snow-Burner—he’s the one. He copped me dough and sent me down here and told me to work off my mad on you.”

“Well, you’ve worked it off now, I guess,” said Toppy curtly. “Dig in, now; you’re half a dozen loads behind.”

Sheedy did not fill the place of the man he had supplanted, for in his mixed-ale condition he was unable to work a full day at a strong man’s pace. However, he did so well that when Toppy checked up in the evening he found that his tally again was well over the stipulated average of a hundred loads of rock per hour.

“Move two,” he thought. “I wonder what comes next?”

CHAPTER XIV—“JOKER AND DEUCES WILD”

“‘Does it hurt, Mr. Campbell?’ says she. ‘Not as much as something that’s heavy on my mind, lass,’ says I. ‘What’s that?’ she says. ‘Mr. Reivers and you, lass,’ says I; and I told her as well as an old man can tell a lass who’s little more than a child just what the Snow-Burner is. ‘I can’t believe it,’ says she. ‘He’s a gentleman.’ ‘More’s the pity,’ I says. ’That’s what makes him dangerous.’ ‘Were you not afraid of him at first?’ says I. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Tell me honest, as you would your own father,’ says I, ‘are you not afraid of him now?’

“With that she gave me a look like a little fawn that has smelled the wolf circling ‘round it, but she will not answer. ‘He can’t be what you say he is,’ she says, trembling. ‘Lass,’ says I, ‘a week ago you would never have believed it possible that you’d ever wish aught to do with him. Now you walk with him and talk with him, and smile when he does.’ And I told her of Tilly.

“‘It’s not so,’ says she. ‘It can’t be so. Mr. Reivers is a gentleman, not a brute. He’s too strong and fine,’ says she, ‘for such conduct.’ And the bandage being done, I was dismissed with a toss of the head. Aye, aye, lad; but ’twas fine to have her little fingers sewing away around my old hand. Yon’s a fine, sweet lass; but I fear me Reivers has set his will to win her.”

Toppy made no reply. Campbell’s words aroused only one emotion in him—a fresh flare of anger against Reivers. For it was Reivers, and his strength and dominance, that was responsible. Toppy already was sorry for the swift judgment that he had passed on the girl on Sunday, and for the rudeness which, in his anger, he had displayed toward her. He knew now the power that lay in Reivers’ will, the calm, compelling fire that lurked in his eyes.

Men quailed before those eyes and did their bidding. And a girl, a little girl who must naturally feel grateful toward him for her position, could hardly be expected to resist the Snow-Burner’s undeniable fascinations. Why should she? Reivers was everything that women were drawn to in men—kinglike in his power of mind and body, striking in appearance, successful in whatever he sought to do.

It was inevitable that the girl should fall under his spell, but the thought of it sent a chill up Toppy’s spine as from the thought of something monstrous. He raged inwardly as he remembered how clearly the girl had let him see his own insignificance in her estimation compared with Reivers. She had refused to believe Campbell; Toppy knew that she would refuse to listen to him if he tried to warn her against Reivers.

The fashion in which he slammed the supper-dishes on the table brought a protest from Scotty.

“Dinna be so strong with the dishes, lad; they’re not iron,” said he.

“You ‘tend to your cooking,” growled Toppy. “I’ll set this table.”

Campbell paused with a spoon in midair and gaped at him in astonishment. He opened his mouth to speak, but the black scowl on Toppy’s brow checked his tongue. Silently he turned to his cooking. He had seen that he was no longer boss in the room behind the shop.

After supper Campbell brought forth a deck of cards and began to play solitaire. Toppy threw himself upon his bunk and lay in the darkness with his troublesome thoughts. An unmistakable step outside the door brought him to his feet, for he had an instinctive dislike to meeting Reivers save face to face and standing up. Reivers came in without speaking and shut the door behind him. He stood with his hand on the knob and looked over at Toppy and shook his head.

“Treplin, how could you disappoint me so?” he asked mockingly. “After I had reposed such confidence in you, too! I’m sorely disappointed in you. I never looked for you to be a victim of the teachings of weak men and I find—ye gods! I find that you’re a humanitarian!”

By this and this only did Reivers indicate that he had knowledge of how Toppy had protected his men.

Toppy looked steadily across the room at him, a grim smile on his lips.

“Did Bill Sheedy call me that?” he asked drily. “Shame on him if he did; I didn’t make him slip me the Torta boys’ money as a present.”

Reivers’ laugh rang instantly through the room.

“So you’ve won Bill’s confidences already, have you?” he said without the slightest trace of shame or discomfiture. “Dear old Bill! He actually seemed to be under the impression that he had a title to that money—until I suggested otherwise. I ask you, Treplin, as a man with a trained if not an efficient mind, is Bill Sheedy a proper man to possess the title to ninety-eight dollars?”

He swung across the room, laughing heartily, and reached into the cupboard for Scotty’s whiskey. As he did so his eyes fell upon the cards which Scotty was placing upon the table, and for the first time Toppy saw in his eyes the gleam of a human weakness. Reivers stood, paused, for an instant, his eyes feasting upon the cards. It was only an instant, but it was enough to whisper to Toppy the secret of the Snow-Burner’s passion for play. And Toppy exulted at this chance discovery of the vulnerable joint in Reivers’ armour; for Toppy—alas for his misspent youth!—was a master-warrior when a deck of cards was the field of battle.

“It’s none of my funeral, Reivers,” he said carelessly, strolling over to the table where Campbell went on playing, apparently oblivious to the conversation. “I don’t know anything about Sheedy. Of course, if you’re serious, the Torta boys are the only ones in camp who’ve got any right to the money.”

Reivers stopped short in the act of pouring himself a drink. Campbell, with his back toward Reivers, paused with a card in his hand. Toppy yawned and dropped into a chair from which he could watch Campbell’s game.

“But that’s none of my business,” he said as if dropping the subject. “There’s a chance for your black queen, Scotty.”

Reivers poured himself his tumbler full of Scotch whiskey, drew up a third chair to the table and sat down across from Toppy. The latter apparently was absorbed in watching Campbell’s solitaire. Reivers took a long, contented sip of his fiery tipple and smiled pleasantly.

“You turned loose an idea there, Treplin,” he said. “But can you make your premise stand argument? Are you sure that the Torta boys are the ones who have a right to that ninety-eight dollars? On what grounds do you give them the exclusive title to the money?”

“It’s theirs. Bill stole it from them. You said he did. That’s all I know about it,” said Toppy, scarcely raising his eyes from the cards.

“Why do you say it was theirs, Treplin?” persisted Reivers smilingly. “Merely because they had it in their possession! Isn’t that so? You don’t know how they came by it, but because they had it in their possession you speak of it as theirs. Very well. Bill Sheedy took it away from them. It was in his possession, so, following your line of logic, it was his—for a short while.

“I took it from Bill. It’s in my possession now. Therefore, if your premise is sound, the money is mine. Why, Treplin, I’m really obliged to you for furnishing me such a clear title to my loot. It was—ah—beginning to trouble my conscience.” He laughed suddenly, punctuating his laughter with a blow of his fist on the table.

“All rot, Treplin; all silly sophistry which weak men have built up to protect themselves from the strong! The infernal lie that because a man is in possession of a certain thing it is his to the exclusion of the rest of the world! Property-rights! I’ll tell you the truth—why this money is mine, why I’m the one who has the real title to it. I was able to take it, and I am able to keep it. There’s the natural law of property-rights, Treplin. What do you say to that?”

“Fine!” laughed Toppy, throwing up his hands in surrender. “You bowl me over, Reivers. The money is yours; and—” he glanced at the cards “—and if you and I should play a little game of poker, joker and deuces wild, and I should take it away from you, it would be mine; and there you are.”

The words had slipped out of him, apparently without any aim; but Toppy saw by the sudden glance which Reivers dropped to the cards that the gambling-hunger in the Snow-Burner had been awakened.

“Joker and deuces wild,” he repeated as if fascinated. “Yes, that ought to help make a two-handed game fast.”

The whole manner of the man seemed for the moment changed. For the first time since Toppy had met him he seemed to be seriously interested. Previously, when he played with the lives and bodies of men or devilled their minds with his wiles, his interest had never been deeper than that of a man who plays to keep himself from being bored. He was the master in all such affairs; they could furnish him at their best but an idle sort of interest. But not even the Snow-Burner was master of the inscrutable laws of Chance. Nor was he master of himself when cards were flipping before his eyes. Toppy had guessed right; Reivers had a weakness, and it was to be “card-crazy.”

“Get over there on that other table with your solitaire, Campbell!” he ordered. He reached into Campbell’s liquor-cabinet and drew out a fresh pack of cards, which he tossed to Toppy. “You started something, Mr. Humanitarian,” he continued, clearing the table. “Open the deck and cut for deal. Then show me what you’ve got to stack up against this ninety-eight dollars.” And he slapped a wad of crumpled bills on the table.

Toppy nonchalantly reached into his pockets. Then he grinned. The two twenty-dollar bills which he had paid the agent back in Rail Head for the privilege of hiring out to Hell Camp were all the money he had with him. He was broke. He debated with himself a moment, then unhooked his costly watch from the chain and pushed it across to Reivers.

“You can sell that for five hundred—if you win it,” he said. “I’ll play it even against your ninety-eight bucks. Give me forty-nine to start with. If you win them give me forty-nine more, and the watch is yours. Right?”

“Right,” said Reivers, keeping the watch and dividing his roll with Toppy. “Dollar jack-pots, table-stakes. Deal ’em up.”

Toppy lost ten dollars on the first hand almost before he realised that the game had begun. He called Reivers’ bet and had three fours and nothing else in his hand. Reivers had two of the wild deuces and a king. Toppy shook his head, like a pugilist clearing his wits after a knockdown. Why had he called? He knew his three fours weren’t good. His card-sense had told him so. He had called against his judgment. Why?

Suddenly, like something tangible pressing against his brain, he felt Reivers’ will thrusting itself against his. Then he knew. That was why he had called. Reivers had willed that he do so, and, catching him off his guard, had had his way.

“Good work!” said Toppy, passing the cards. He was himself again; his wits had cleared. He allowed Reivers to take the next three pots in succession without a bet. Reivers looked at him puzzled. The fourth pot Toppy opened for five dollars and Reivers promptly raised him ten. After the draw Toppy bet a dollar, and Reivers again raised it to ten more. Toppy called. Reivers, caught bluffing without a single pair, stared as Toppy laid down his hand and revealed nothing but his original openers, a pair of aces. A frown passed over Reivers’ face. He peered sharply at Toppy from beneath his overhanging brows, but Toppy was raking in the pot as casually as if such play with a pair of aces was part of his system.

“Good work!” said Reivers, and gathered the cards to him with a jerk.

Half a dozen hands later, on Reivers’ deal, Toppy picked up his hand and saw four kings.

“I’ll pass,” said he.

“I open for five,” said Reivers.

“Take the money,” laughed Toppy carelessly throwing his hand into the discard. For an instant Reivers’ eyes searched him with a look of surprise. The glance was sufficient to tell Toppy that what he had suspected was true.

“So he’s dealing ’em as he wants ’em!” thought Toppy. “All right. He’s brought it on himself.”

An hour later Reivers arose from the table with a smile. The money had changed hands. Toppy was snapping his watch back on its chain, and stuffing the bills into his pocket.

“Your money now, Treplin,” laughed Reivers. “Until somebody takes it away from you.”

But there was a new note in his laughter. He had been beaten, and his irritation showed in his laughter and in the manner in which, after he had taken another big drink of whiskey, he paused in the doorway as he made to leave.

“Great luck, Treplin; great luck with cards you have!” he said laughingly. “Too bad your luck ends there, isn’t it? What’s that paraphrase of the old saw? ‘Lucky with cards, unlucky with women.’ Good night, Treplin.”

He went out, laughing as a man laughs when he has a joke on the other fellow.

“What did he mean by that?” asked Campbell, puzzled.

“I don’t know,” said Toppy. But he knew now that Tilly had told Reivers of his talk with Miss Pearson the first evening in camp, and that Reivers had saved it up against him.