“I see. But why the name?”
“Hell Camp?” The bartender’s grin appeared again; then, as if a second thought on the matter had occurred to him, he assumed a noncommittal expression and yawned. “Oh, that’s just nickname the boys give it. You see, the boys from camp come to town here in the Spring. Then sometimes they raise——. That’s why some people call it Hell Camp. That’s all. Cameron Dam Camp is the right name.”
“I see.” Toppy was wondering why the man should take the trouble to lie to him. Of course he was lying. Even Toppy, with his bleared eyes, could see that the man had started to berate Hell Camp even as he had berated Rail Head and had suddenly switched and said nothing. It hurt Toppy’s head. It wasn’t fair to puzzle him this morning. “I see. Just—just a nickname.”
“That’s all,” said the bartender. Briskly changing the subject he said: “Well, how ’bout it, stranger? You going to have eye-opener this morning?”
“I suppose so,” said Toppy absently. He again turned his attention to the view from the window. On the low stairs of the hotel were seated half a dozen men whose flat, ox-like faces and foreign clothing marked them for immigrants, newly arrived, of the Slavic type. Some sat on wooden trunks oddly marked, others stood with bundles beneath their arms. They waited stolidly, blankly, with their eyes on the hotel door, as oxen wait for the coming of the man who is going to feed them. Toppy looked on with idle interest.
“I didn’t think you could see anything like that this far away from Ellis Island,” he said. “What are those fellows, brother?”
“Bohunks,” said the bartender with a contemptuous jerk of the head. “They waiting to hire out for the Cameron Dam Camp. The agent he comes to the hotel. Well, what you going to have?”
“Bring me a whisky sour,” said Toppy, without taking his eyes off the group across the street. The half-breed grinned and placed before him a bottle of whisky and a glass. Toppy frowned.
“A whisky sour, I said,” he protested.
“When you get this far in the woods,” laughed the man, “they all come out of one bottle. Drink up.”
Once more Toppy shuddered. He was bored by this time.
“Your jokes up here are worse than your booze,” he said wearily.
He poured out a scant drink and sat with the glass in his hand while his eyes were upon the group across the street. He was about to drink when a stir among the men drew his attention. The door of the hotel opened briskly. Toppy suddenly set down his glass.
The girl who had got on the narrow-gauge out at the junction the night before had come out and was standing on the stairs, looking about her with an expression which to Toppy seemed plainly to spell, “Help!”
CHAPTER II—THE GIRL
Toppy sat and stared across the street at her with a feeling much like awe. The girl was standing forth in the full morning sunlight, and Toppy’s first impulse was to cross the street to her, his second to hide his face. She was small and young, the girl, and beautiful. She was a blonde, such a blonde as is found only in the North. The sun lighted up the aureole of light hair surrounding her head, so that even Toppy behind the windows of the Northern Light caught a vision of its fineness. Her cheeks bore the red of perfect health showing through a perfect, fair complexion, and even the thick red mackinaw which she wore did not hide the trimness of the figure beneath.
“What in the dickens is she doing here?” gasped Toppy. “She doesn’t belong in a place like this.”
But if this were true the girl apparently was entirely unconscious of it. Among that group of ox-like Slavs she stood with her little chin in the air, as much at home, apparently, as if those men were all her good friends. Only she looked about her now and then as if anxiously seeking a way out of a dilemma.
“What can she be doing here?” mused Toppy. “A little, pretty thing like her! She ought to be back home with mother and father and brother and sister, going to dancing-school, and all the rest of it.”
Toppy was no stranger to pretty girls. He had met pretty girls by the score while at college. He had been adored by dozens. After college he had met still more. None of them had interested him to any inconvenient extent. After all, a man’s friends are all men.
But this girl, Toppy admitted, struck him differently. He had never seen a girl that struck him like this before. He pushed his glass to one side. He was bored no longer. For the first time in four years the full shame of his mode of living was driven home to him, for as he feasted his eyes on the sun-kissed vision across the street his decent instincts whispered that a man who squandered and swilled his life away just because he had money had no right to raise his eyes to this girl.
“You’re a waster, that’s what you are,” said Toppy to himself, “and she’s one of those sweet——”
He was on his feet before the sentence was completed. In her perplexity the girl had turned to the men about her and apparently had asked a question. At first their utter unresponsiveness indicated that they did not understand.
Then they began to smile, looking at one another and at the girl. The brutal manner in which they fixed their eyes upon her sent the blood into Toppy’s throat. White men didn’t look at a woman that way.
Then one of the younger men spoke to the girl. Toppy saw her start and look at him with parted lips. The group gathered more closely around. The young man spoke again, grimacing and smirking bestially, and Toppy waited for no more. He was a waster and half drunk; but after all he was a white man, of the same breed as the girl on the stairs, and he knew his job.
He came across the snow-covered street like Toppy Treplin of old bent upon making a touchdown. Into the group he walked, head up, shouldering and elbowing carelessly. Toppy caught the young speaker by both shoulders and hurled him bodily back among his fellows. For an instant they faced Toppy, snarling, their hands cautiously sliding toward hidden knives. Then they grovelled, cringing instinctively before the better breed.
Toppy turned to the girl and removed his cap. She had not cried out nor moved, and now she looked Toppy squarely in the eye. Toppy promptly hung his head. He had been thinking of her as something of a child. Now he saw his mistake. She was young, it is true—little over twenty perhaps—but there was an air of self-reliance and seriousness about her as if she had known responsibilities beyond her years. And her eyes were blue, Toppy saw—the perfect blue that went with her fair complexion.
“I beg pardon,” stammered Toppy. “I just happened to see—it looked as if they were getting fresh—so I thought I’d come across and—and see if there was anything—anything I could do.”
“Thank you,” said the girl a little breathlessly. “Are—are you the agent?”
Toppy shook his head. The look of perplexity instantly returned to the girl’s face.
“I’m sorry; I wish I was,” said Toppy. “If you’ll tell me who the agent is, and so on—” he included most of the town of Rail Head in a comprehensive glance—“I’ll probably be able to find him in a hurry.”
“Oh, I couldn’t think of troubling you. Thank you ever so much, though,” she said hastily. “They told me in the hotel that he was outside here some place. I’ll find him myself, thank you.”
She stepped off the stairs into the snow of the street, every inch and line of her, from her solid tan boots to her sensible tassel cap, expressing the self-reliance and independence of the girl who is accustomed and able to take care of herself under trying circumstances.
The