“Aye, I asked that of him once,” he said. “‘Though it’s none of your business,’ says he, ‘I’ll tell you. I got tired of living where people snivel about laws concerning right and wrong,’ says he, ‘instead of acknowledging that there is only one law ruling life—that the strong can master the weak.’ That is Mr. Reivers’ religion. He was only worshipping his strange gods when he broke Rosky’s leg, for he considers Rosky a weaker man than himself, and therefore ’tis his duty to break him to his own will.”
“A fine religion!” snapped Toppy. “And how about his dealings with you?”
The Scot smiled grimly.
“I’m the best smith he ever had,” he replied, “and I’ve warned him that I’d consider it a duty under my religion to shoot him through the head did he ever attempt to force his creed upon me.” He paused and held up a finger. “Hist, lad. That’s him coming noo. He’s come for his regular evening’s mouthfu’ of conversation.”
Toppy found himself sitting up and gripping the arms of his chair as Reivers came swinging in. He eagerly searched the foreman’s countenance for a sign to indicate whether Tilly, the squaw, had communicated the conversation she had heard between Toppy and Miss Pearson, but if she had there was nothing to indicate it in Reivers’ expression or manner. His self-mastery awoke a sullen rage in Toppy. He felt himself to be a boy beside Reivers.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” greeted Reivers lightly, pulling a chair up to the reading-table. “It is a pleasure to find intelligent society after having spent the last hour handling the broken leg of a miserable brute on two legs. Bah! The whisky, Scotty, please. I wonder what miracles of misbreeding have been necessary to turn out alleged human beings with bodies so hideous compared to what the human body should be. Treplin, if you or I stripped beside those Hunkies the only thing we’d have in common would be the number of our legs and arms.”
He drew toward him a tumbler which Campbell had pushed over beside the bottle and, filling the glass three-quarters full, began to drink slowly at the powerful Scotch whisky as another man might sip at beer or light wine. Old Campbell rocked slowly to and fro in his chair.
“‘He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword,’” he quoted solemnly. “No man is a god to set himself up, lord over the souls and bodies of his fellows. They will put out your light for you one of these days, Mr. Reivers. Have care and treat them a little more like men.”
Reivers smiled a quick smile that showed a mouthful of teeth as clean and white as a hound’s.
“Let’s have your opinion on the subject, Treplin,” he said. “New opinions are always interesting, and Scotty repeats the same thing over and over again. What do you think of it? Do you think I can maintain my rule over those hundred and fifty clods out there in the stockade as I am ruling them, through the law of strength over weakness? Do you think one superior mind can dominate a hundred and fifty inferior organisms? Or do you think, with Scotty here, that the dregs can drag me down?”