“Yes; but it wasn’t manhandling; it was brute-handling, beast-handling.”
“Aye,” said the Scot, sipping his drink. “So think I, too. But do you know what Reivers calls it? An enlightened man showing a human clod the error of his ways. Oh, aye; the Indians were smart when they named him the Snow-Burner. He does things that aren’t natural.”
“But who is he, or what is he? He’s an educated man, obviously—’way above what a logging-boss ought to be. What do you know about him?”
“Little enough,” was the reply. “Four year ago I were smithing in Elk Lake Camp over east of here, when Reivers came walking into camp. That was the first any white men had seen of him around these woods, though afterward we learned he’d lived long enough with the Indians to earn the name of the Snow-Burner.
“It were January, and two feet of snow on the level, and fifty below. Reivers came walking into camp, and the nearest human habitation were forty mile away. ‘Red Pat’ Haney were foreman—a man-killer with the devil’s own temper; and him Reivers deeliberately set himself to arouse. A week after his coming, this same Reivers had every man in camp looking up to him, except Red Pat.
“And Reivers drove Pat half mad with that contemptuous smile of his, and Pat pulled a gun; and Reivers says, ‘That’s what I was waiting for,’ and broke Pat’s bones with his bare hands and laid him up. Then, says he, ‘This camp is going on just the same as if nothing had happened, and I’m going to be boss.’ That was all there was to it; he’s been a boss ever since.”
“And you don’t know where he came from? Or anything else about him?”
“Oh, he’s from England—an Oxford man, for that matter,” said Campbell. “He admitted that much once when we were argufying. He’ll be here soon; he comes to quarrel with me every evening.”
“Why does an Oxford man want to be ’way out here bossing a logging-camp?” grumbled Toppy.
Campbell nodded.