“Treplin, how could you disappoint me so?” he asked mockingly. “After I had reposed such confidence in you, too! I’m sorely disappointed in you. I never looked for you to be a victim of the teachings of weak men and I find—ye gods! I find that you’re a humanitarian!”
By this and this only did Reivers indicate that he had knowledge of how Toppy had protected his men.
Toppy looked steadily across the room at him, a grim smile on his lips.
“Did Bill Sheedy call me that?” he asked drily. “Shame on him if he did; I didn’t make him slip me the Torta boys’ money as a present.”
Reivers’ laugh rang instantly through the room.
“So you’ve won Bill’s confidences already, have you?” he said without the slightest trace of shame or discomfiture. “Dear old Bill! He actually seemed to be under the impression that he had a title to that money—until I suggested otherwise. I ask you, Treplin, as a man with a trained if not an efficient mind, is Bill Sheedy a proper man to possess the title to ninety-eight dollars?”
He swung across the room, laughing heartily, and reached into the cupboard for Scotty’s whiskey. As he did so his eyes fell upon the cards which Scotty was placing upon the table, and for the first time Toppy saw in his eyes the gleam of a human weakness. Reivers stood, paused, for an instant, his eyes feasting upon the cards. It was only an instant, but it was enough to whisper to Toppy the secret of the Snow-Burner’s passion for play. And Toppy exulted at this chance discovery of the vulnerable joint in Reivers’ armour; for Toppy—alas for his misspent youth!—was a master-warrior when a deck of cards was the field of battle.
“It’s none of my funeral, Reivers,” he said carelessly, strolling over to the table where Campbell went on playing, apparently oblivious to the conversation. “I don’t know anything about Sheedy. Of course, if you’re serious, the Torta boys are the only ones in camp who’ve got any right to the money.”
Reivers stopped short in the act of pouring himself a drink. Campbell, with his back toward Reivers, paused with a card in his hand. Toppy yawned and dropped into a chair from which he could watch Campbell’s game.
“But that’s none of my business,” he said as if dropping the subject. “There’s a chance for your black queen, Scotty.”