“Now I remember. Row with Harvey Duncombe. Wanted me to drink two to his one. Stepped outside. Saw little train. Saw little girl. Stepped off big train, got on little train, and here I am. Fine little business.”
“You went to sleep in the train coming up, the conductor told me,” volunteered the half-breed. “You told them you wanted to go as far as you could, so they took you up here to the end of the line. You remember now, eh, why you come here?”
“Only too well, brother,” replied Toppy wearily. “I—I just came to see your beautiful little city.”
The bartender laughed bitterly.
“You come to a fine place. Didn’t you ever hear ‘bout Rail Head?” he asked. “I guess not, or you wouldn’t have come. This town’s the jumping-off place, that’s what she is. It’s the most God-forsaken, hopeless excuse for a town in the whole North Country. There’s only two kind of business here—shipping men out to Hell Camp and skinning them when they come back. That’s all. What you think of that for a fine town you’ve landed in, eh?”
“Fine,” said Toppy. “I see you love it dearly, indeed.”
The half-breed nodded grimly.
“It’s all right for me; I own this place. Anybody else is sucker to come here, though. You ain’t a Bohunk fool, so I don’t think you come to hire out for Hell Camp. You just got too drunk, eh?”
“I suppose so,” said Toppy, yawning. “What’s this Hell Camp thing? Pleasant little name.”
“An’ pleasant little place,” supplemented the man mockingly. “Ain’t you never heard ‘bout Hell Camp? ‘Bout its boss—Reivers—the ‘Snow-Burner’? Huh! Perhaps you want hire out there for job?”