“I knew there was no other place where you could earn seventy-five dollars a month, and save it. I knew you wouldn’t come if I wrote you over my own name. So I signed Simmons’ name, and you came. I said I would not trouble you any more, and I keep my word. The situation is this: you will be in charge of this office—if you stay; I am in charge of the camp. You will have little or nothing to do with me; I will manage so that you will need to see me only when absolutely necessary. Your living-rooms are in the rear of the office. I live in the stockade. Tilly, the squaw, will cook and wash for you, and do the hard work in the store. In four months you will have the three hundred dollars that you want for your father.
“I had much rather you would accept it from me as a loan on a simple business basis; but as you won’t, this is the next best thing. And you mustn’t feel that you are accepting any favour from me. On the contrary, you will, if you stay, be solving a big problem for me. I simply can not handle accounts. A strange bookkeeper could rob me and the company blind, and I’d never know it. I know you won’t do that; and I know that you’re efficient.
“That’s the situation. I am keeping my word; I will not trouble you. If you decide to accept, go in and take off your hat and coat and tell Tilly to prepare supper for you. She will obey your orders blindly; I have told her to. If you decide that you don’t want to stay, say the word and I will have one of the work-teams hooked up and you can go back to Rail Head to-night.
“But whichever you do, Helen, please remember that I have not broken—and never will break—my promise to you.”
Before Reivers had begun to speak Toppy had hated the man as a contemptible sneak guilty of lying to get the girl at his mercy. The end of the Manager’s speech left him bewildered. One couldn’t help wanting to believe every word that Reivers said, there were so much manliness and sincerity in his tone. On the other hand, Toppy had seen his face when he was handling the unfortunate Rosky, and the unashamed brute that had showed itself then did not fit with this remarkable speech. Then Toppy heard Reivers coming toward the door.
“I will leave you; you can make up your mind alone,” he said. “I’ve got to attend to one of the men who has been hurt. If you decide to go back to Rail Head, tell Tilly, and she’ll hunt me up and I’ll send a team over right away.”
He stepped briskly out in the hallway and saw Toppy standing with his hand on the door of the store.
“Oh, hello, there!” he called out cheerily. “Campbell tell you to draw your blankets? That’s the first step in the process of becoming a—guest at Hell Camp. Get a pair of XX; they’re the warmest.”
He passed swiftly out of the building.
“I say, Treplin,” he called back from a distance, “did you ever set a broken leg?”