The Snow-Burner. Henry Oyen

the poor wretches who cowered from him like pygmies, was like a tiger preparing to spring and carefully calculating where his claws and fangs might sink in with most damage to his victims. He stood with his feet close together, his thumbs hooked carelessly in his trousers pockets, his head thrust far forward. Toppy had a glimpse of a long, thin nose, thin lips parted in a sneer, heavily browed eyes, and, beneath the back-thrust cap, a mass of curly light hair—hair as light as the girl’s! Then Reivers spoke.

      “Rosky!” he said in a voice that was half snarl, half bellow.

      There was a troubled movement among the dozen men huddled against the wall, but there came no answer.

      “Rosky! Step out!” commanded Reivers in a tone whose studied ferocity made Toppy shudder.

      In response, a tall, broad-shouldered Slav, the oldest and largest man in the group, stepped sullenly out and stood a yard in front of his fellows. He had taken off his cap and held it tightly in his clenched right hand, and the expression on his flat face as he stood with hanging head and scowled at Reivers was one half of fear and half of defiance.

      “You no can hit me,” he muttered doggedly. “I citizen; I got first papers.”

      Reivers’s manner underwent a change.

      “Hit you?” he repeated softly. “Who wants to hit you? I just want to talk with you. I hear you’re thinking of quitting. I hear you’ve planned to take these fellows with you when you go. How about it, Rosky?”

      “I got papers,” said the man sullenly. “I citizen; I quit job when I want.”

      “Yes?” said Reivers gently. It was like a tiger playing with a hedgehog, and Toppy sickened. “But you signed to stay here six months, didn’t you?”

      The gentleness of the Manager had deceived the thick-witted Slav and he grew bold.

      “I drunk when I sign,” he said loudly. “All these fellow drunk when they sign. I quit. They quit. You no can keep us here if we no want stay.”

      “I can’t?” Still Reivers saw fit to play with his victim.

      “No,” said the man. “And you no dare hit us again, no.”

      “No?” purred Reivers softly. “No, certainly not; I wouldn’t hit you. You’re quite right, Rosky. I won’t hit you; no.”

      He was standing at least seven feet from his man, his feet close together, his thumbs still hooked in his trousers pockets. Suddenly, and so swiftly that Rosky did not have time to move, Reivers took a step forward and shot out his right foot. His boot seemed barely to touch the shin-bone of Rosky’s right leg, but Toppy heard the bone snap as the Slav, with a shriek of pain and terror, fell face downward, prone in the trampled snow at Reivers’ feet.

      And Reivers did not look at him. He was standing as before, as if nothing had happened, as if he had not moved. His eyes were upon the other men, who, appalled at their leader’s fate, huddled more closely against the log wall.

      “Well, how about it?” demanded Reivers icily after a long silence. “Any more of you fellows think you want to quit?”

      Half of the dozen cried out in terror:

      “No, no! We no quit. Please, boss; we no quit.”

      A smile of complete contempt curled Reivers’ thin upper lip.

      “You poor scum, of course you ain’t going to quit,” he sneered. “You’ll stay here and slave away until I’m through with you. And don’t you even dare think of quitting. Rosky thought he’d kept his plans mighty secret—thought I wouldn’t know what he was planning. You see what happened to him.

      “I know everything that’s going on in this camp. If you don’t believe it, try it out and see. Now pick this thing up—” he stirred the groaning Rosky contemptuously with his foot—“and carry him into his bunk. I’ll be around and set his leg when I get ready. Then get back to the rock-pile and make up for the time it’s taken to teach you this lesson.”

      The brutality of the thing had frozen Toppy motionless where he sat in the sleigh. At the same time he was conscious of a thrill of admiration for the dominant creature who had so contemptuously crippled a fellow man. A brute Reivers certainly was, and well he deserved the name of Hell-Camp Reivers; but a born captain he was, too, though his dominance was of a primordial sort.

      Turning instantly from his victim as from a piece of business that is finished, Reivers looked around and came toward the sleigh. Some primitive instinct prompted Toppy to step out and stretch himself leisurely, his long arms above his head, his big chest inflated to the limit. At the sight of him a change came over Reivers’ face. The brutality and contempt went out of it like a flash. His eyes lighted up with pleasure at the sight of Toppy’s magnificent proportions, and he smiled a quick smile of comradeship, such as one smiles when he meets a fellow and equal, and held out his hand to Toppy.

      “University man, I’ll wager,” he said, in the easy voice of a man of culture. “Glad to see you; more than glad! These beasts are palling on me. They’re so cursed physical—no mind, no spirit in them. Nothing but so many pounds of meat and bone. Old Campbell, my blacksmith, is the only other intelligent being in camp, and he’s Scotch and believes in predestination and original sin, so his conversation’s rather trying for a steady diet.”

      Toppy shook hands, amazed beyond expression. Except for his shaggy eyebrows—brows that somehow reminded Toppy of the head of a bear he had once shot—Reivers now was the sort of man one would expect to meet in the University Club rather than in a logging-camp. The brute had vanished, the gentleman had appeared; and Toppy was forced to smile in answer to Reivers’ genial smile of greeting. And yet, somewhere back in Reivers’ blue eyes Toppy saw lurking something which said, “I am your master—doubt it if you dare.”

      “I hired out as blacksmith’s helper,” he explained. “My name’s Treplin.”

      He did not take his eyes from Reivers’. Somehow he had the sensation that Reivers’ will and his own had leaped to a grapple.

      Reivers laughed aloud in friendly fashion.

      “Blacksmith’s helper, eh?” he said. “That’s good; that’s awfully good! Well, old man, I don’t care what you hired out for, or what your right name is; you’re a developed human being and you’ll be somebody to talk to when these brutes grow too tiresome.” He turned to Jerry, the driver. “Well?” he said curtly.

      “She’s in the office now,” he said.

      “All right.” Reivers turned and went briskly toward the gate. “Turn Mr. Treplin over to Campbell. You’ll live with Campbell, Treplin,” he called over his shoulder, as he went through the gate. “And you hit the back trail, Jerry, right away.”

      As Jerry swung the team around Toppy saw that Reivers was going toward the office with long, eager strides.

CHAPTER V—TOPPY OVERHEARS A CONVERSATION

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      Old Campbell, the blacksmith, had knocked off from the day’s work when, a few minutes later, Toppy stepped from the sleigh before the door of the shop.

      “Go through the shop to that room in the back,” said Jerry. “You’ll find him in there.” And he drove off without another word.

      Toppy walked in and knocked at a door in a partition across the rear of the shop.

      “Come in,” spluttered a moist, cheery voice, and Toppy entered. The old blacksmith, naked to the waist and soaped from shoulders to ears, looked up from the steaming tub in which he was carefully removing every trace of the day’s smut. He peered sharply at Toppy, and at the sight of the young man’s good-natured face he smiled warmly through the suds.

      “Come