Toppy had no knowledge or skill in the trade, but he had strength and quickness, and the thoughts of Reivers’ masterfulness, and the “nice boy” in the mouth of the girl, spurred him to the limit. The heavy sledgework fell to his lot as a matter of course. A twenty-pound sledge was a plaything in Toppy’s hand—for the first fifteen minutes.
After that the hammer seemed to increase progressively in weight, until at the end of the first day’s work Toppy would gladly have credited the statement that it weighed a ton. Likewise the heavy runner-irons, which he lifted with ease on the anvil in the morning, seemed to grow heavier as the day grew older. Had Toppy been in the splendid condition that had helped him to win his place on the All-American eleven four years before, he might have gone through the cruel period of breaking-in without faltering. But four years of reckless living had taken their toll. The same magnificent frame and muscles were there; the great heart and grit and sand likewise. But there was something else there, too; the softening, weakening traces of decomposed alcohol in organs and tissues, and under the strain of the terrific pace which old Campbell set for Toppy, abused organs, fibres and nerves began to creak and groan, and finally called out, “Halt!”
It was only Toppy’s grit—the “great heart” that had made him a champion—and the desire to prove his strength before Reivers that kept him at work after the first day. His body had quit cold. He had never before undergone such expenditure of muscular energy, not even in the fiercest game of his career. That was play; this was torture. On the second morning his body shrank involuntarily from the spectacle of the torturing sledge, anvil and irons, but pride and grit drove him on with set jaw and hard eyes. Quit? Well, hardly. Reivers walked around the camp and smiled as he saw Toppy sweating, and Toppy swore and went on.
On the third day old Campbell looked at him with curiosity.
“Well, lad, have ye had enough?” he asked, smiling pityingly. “Ye can get a job helping the cookee if you find man’s work too hard for ye.”
Toppy, between clenched teeth, swore savagely. He was so tired that he was sick. The toxins of fatigue, aided and abetted by the effects of hard living, had poisoned him until his feet and brain felt as heavy as lead. It hurt him to move and it hurt him to think. He was groggy, all but knocked out; but something within him held him doggedly at the tasks which were surely mastering him.
That night he dragged himself to bed without waiting for supper. In the morning Campbell was amazed to see him tottering toward his accustomed place in the shop; for old Campbell had set a pace that had racked his own iron, work-tried body, and he had allowed Toppy two days in which to cry enough.
“Hold up a little, lad,” he grumbled. “We’re away ahead of our job. There’s no need laying yourself up. Take you a rest.”
“You go to ——!” exploded the overwrought Toppy. “Take a rest yourself if you need one; I don’t.”
He was working on his nerve now, flogging his weary arms and body to do his bidding against their painful protests; and he worked like a madman, fearing that if he came to a halt the run-down machinery would refuse to start afresh.