“Snow-Burner,” grunted Tilly, laying his head on the pillow. “He send me. Sleep um now.”
“Sure,” sighed Toppy, and promptly fell back into his moaning, feverish slumber.
CHAPTER IX—A FRESH START
When he awoke again to clear consciousness, it was morning. The sun which came in through the east window shone in his eyes and lighted up the room. Toppy lay still. He was quite content to lie so. An inexplicable feeling of peace and comfort ruled in every inch of his being. The bored, heavy feeling with which for a long time past he had been in the custom of facing a new day was absolutely gone. His tongue was cool; there was none of the old heavy blood-pressure in his head; his nerves were absolutely quiet. Something had happened to him. Toppy was quite conscious of the change, though he was too comfortable to do more than accept his peaceful condition as a fact.
“Ho, hum! I feel like a new man,” he murmured drowsily. “I wonder—ow!”
He had stretched himself leisurely and thus became conscious that his left ankle was bandaged and sore. His cry brought old Campbell into the room—Campbell solemnly arrayed in a long-tailed suit of black, white collar, black tie, spick and span, with beard and hair carefully washed and combed.
“Hello!” gasped Toppy sleepily. “Where you going—funeral?”
“ ’Tis the Sabbath,” said Campbell reverently, as he came to the side of the bunk. “And how do ye feel the day, lad?”
“Fine!” said Toppy. “Considering that I had my ankle sprained last evening.”
The Scot eyed him closely.
“So ’twas last evening ye broke your ankle, was it?” he asked cannily.
“Why, sure,” said Toppy. “Yesterday was Saturday, wasn’t it? We were cleaning up the week’s work. Why, what are you looking at me like that for?”
“Aye,” said Campbell, his Sunday solemnity forbidding the smile that strove to break through. “Yesterday was Saturday, but ’twas not the Saturday you sprained your leg. A week ago Saturday that was, lad, and ye’ve lain here in a fever, out of your head, ever since. Do you mind naught of the whole week?”
Toppy looked up at Campbell in silence for a long time.
“Scotty, if you have to play jokes——”
“Jokes!” spluttered Campbell, aghast. “Losh, mon! Didna I tell ye ’twas the Sabbath? No, ’tis no joke, I assure you. You did more than sprain your ankle when ye tripped that Saturday. You collapsed completely. Lad, you were in poor condition when you came to camp, and had I known it I would not have broken you in so hard. But you’re a good man, lad; the best man I ever saw, if you keep in condition. And do you really feel good again?”
“Why, I feel like a new man,” said Toppy. “I feel as if I’d had a course of baths at Hot Springs.”
Campbell nodded.
“The Snow-Burner said ye would. It’s Tilly he’s had doctoring ye. She’s been feeding you some Indian concoction and keeping ye heated till your blankets were wet through. Oh, you’ve had scandalous good care, lad; Reivers to set your ankle, Tilly to doctor ye Indian-wise, and Miss Pearson and Reivers to drop in together now and anon to see how ye were standing the gaff. No wonder ye came through all right!”
The room seemed suddenly to grow dark for Toppy. Reivers again—Reivers dropping in to look at him as he lay there helpless on his back. Reivers in the position of the master again; and the girl with him! Toppy impatiently threw off his covering.
“Gimme my clothes, Scotty,” he demanded, swinging himself to the edge of the bunk. “I’m tired of lying here on my back.”
Campbell silently handed over his clothing. Toppy was weak, but he succeeded in dressing himself and in tottering over to a chair.
“So Miss Pearson came over here, did she?” he asked thoughtfully. “And with Reivers?”
“Aye,” said Scotty drily. “With Reivers. He has a way with the women, the Snow-Burner has.”
Toppy debated a moment; then he broke out and told Campbell all about how Reivers had deceived Miss Pearson into coming to Hell Camp. The old man listened with tightly pursed lips. As Toppy concluded he shook his head sorrowfully.
“Poor lass, she’s got a hard path before her then,” he said. “If, as you say, she does not wish to care for Reivers.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” said Campbell slowly, “ye’ll be understanding by this time that the Snow-Burner is no ordinar’ man?”
“He’s a fiend—a savage with an Oxford education!” exploded Toppy.
“He is—the Snow-Burner,” said Campbell with finality. “You know what he is toward men. Toward women—he’s worse!”
“Good Heavens!”
“Not that he is a woman-chaser. No; ’tis not his way. But—yon man has the strongest will in him I’ve ever seen in mortal man, and ’tis the will women bow to.” He pulled his whiskers nervously and looked away. “I’ve known him four year now, and no woman in that time that he has set his will upon but in the end has—has followed him like a slave.”
Toppy’s fists clenched, and he joyed to find that in spite of his illness his muscles went hard.
“Ye’ve seen Tilly,” continued Scotty with averted eyes. “Ye’ll not be so blind that ye’ve not observed that she’s no ordinar’ squaw. Well, three years ago Tilly was teacher in the Chippewa Indian School—thin and straight—a Carlisle graduate and all. She met Reivers, and shunned him—at first. Reivers did not chase her. ’Tis not his way. But he bent his will upon her, and the poor girl left her life behind her and followed him, and kept following him, until ye see her as she is now. She would cut your throat or nurse ye as she did, no matter which, did he but command her. And she’s not been the only one, either.
“Nor have the rest of them been red.”
“The swine!” muttered Toppy.
“More wolf than swine, lad. Perhaps more tiger than wolf. I don’t think Reivers intends to break his word to yon lass. But I suspect that he won’t have to. No; as it looks now, he won’t. Given the opportunity to put his will upon her and she’ll change her mind—like the others.”
“He’s a beast, that’s what he is!” said Toppy angrily. “And any woman who would fall for him would get no more than she deserves, even if she’s treated like Tilly. Why, anybody can see that the man’s instincts are all wrong. Right in an animal perhaps, but wrong in a human being. The right kind of women would shun him like poison.”
“I dunno,” said Campbell, rubbing his chin. “Yon lass over in the office is as sweet and womanly a little lass as I’ve seen sin’ I was a lad. And yet—look ye but out of the window, lad!”
Toppy looked out of the window in the direction in which Campbell pointed. The window commanded a view of the gate to the stockade. Reivers was standing idly before the gate. Miss Pearson was coming toward him. As she approached he carelessly turned his head and looked her over from head to foot. From where he sat Toppy could see her smile. Then Reivers calmly turned his back upon her, and the smile on the girl’s face died out. She stood irresolute for a moment, then turned and went slowly back toward the office, glancing occasionally over her shoulder toward the gate. Reivers did not look, but when she was out of sight he began to walk slowly toward the blacksmith-shop.
“Bah!” Toppy