“I ain’t trying any tricks,” he muttered as he made for the quarry. “The Snow-Burner—he’s the one. He copped me dough and sent me down here and told me to work off my mad on you.”
“Well, you’ve worked it off now, I guess,” said Toppy curtly. “Dig in, now; you’re half a dozen loads behind.”
Sheedy did not fill the place of the man he had supplanted, for in his mixed-ale condition he was unable to work a full day at a strong man’s pace. However, he did so well that when Toppy checked up in the evening he found that his tally again was well over the stipulated average of a hundred loads of rock per hour.
“Move two,” he thought. “I wonder what comes next?”
CHAPTER XIV—“JOKER AND DEUCES WILD”
When Toppy went back to the shop that evening he found old Campbell cooking the evening meal with only his right hand in use, the left being wrapped in a neat bandage.
“That’s what comes of leaving me without a helper,” grumbled the Scot as Toppy looked enquiringly at the injured hand. “I maun have ye back, lad; I will not be knocking my hands to pieces doing two men’s work to please any man. And yet—” he cocked his head on one side and looked fondly at the bandage—“I dunno but what ’twas worth it. I’m an auld man, and it’s long sin’ I had a pretty lass make fuss over me.”
“What?” snapped Toppy.
“Oh, go on with ye, lad,” teased Scotty, holding the bandage up for his admiration. “Can not you see that I’m by nature a fav’rite with the ladies? Yon lass in the office sewed this bandage on my old meat hook.
“‘Does it hurt, Mr. Campbell?’ says she. ‘Not as much as something that’s heavy on my mind, lass,’ says I. ‘What’s that?’ she says. ‘Mr. Reivers and you, lass,’ says I; and I told her as well as an old man can tell a lass who’s little more than a child just what the Snow-Burner is. ‘I can’t believe it,’ says she. ‘He’s a gentleman.’ ‘More’s the pity,’ I says. ’That’s what makes him dangerous.’ ‘Were you not afraid of him at first?’ says I. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Tell me honest, as you would your own father,’ says I, ‘are you not afraid of him now?’