“Looking for your humanitarian props, Treplin?” laughed the Snow-Burner. “Oh, they’re gone; they’re valuable; they served a purpose which nothing else would fill—quite so conveniently. I used them for a corduroy road in the swamp. Between men and timbers, Treplin, always save your timbers.” His manner changed like a flash to one hurried and business-like. “What’re you waiting for?” he snarled. “Why don’t you get ’em in there? Mean to say you’re wasting company money because one of these cattle might get a broken back?”
They looked each other full in the eyes, but Toppy knew that for the time being Reivers had the whiphand.
“I mean to say just that,” he said evenly. “I’m not sending any men in there until I get that roof propped up again.”
“Bah!” Reivers’ disgust was genuine. “I thought you were a man; I find you’re a suit of clothes full of emotions, like all the rest!”
He seemed to drive away his anger by sheer will-force and bring the cold, sneering smile back to his lips.
“So we’re up against a situation that’s too strong for us, are we, Mr. Humanitarian?” he laughed. “In spite of our developed intelligence, we lay down cold in the face of a little proposition like this! Good-bye to our dreams of learning how to handle men! It isn’t in us to do it; we’re a weak sister.”
His bantering mood fled with the swiftness of all his changes. Toppy and his aspirations as a leader—that was another incident of the day’s work that was over and done with.
“Go back to the shop, to Scotty, Treplin,” he said quietly. “You’re not responsible for your limitations. Scotty says you make a pretty fair helper. Be consoled. He’s waiting for you.”
He turned instantly toward the men. Toppy, with the hot blood rushing in his throat, but helpless as he was, swung away from the pit without a word. As he did so he saw that the hawk-faced shotgun guard had appeared and taken his position on the little rise where his gun bore slantwise on the huddled men before the pit, and he hurried to get out of sight of the scene. His tongue was dry and his temples throbbing with rage, but the cool section of his mind urged him away from the pit in silence.
Between clenched teeth he cursed his injured ankle. It was the ankle that made him accept without return the shame which Reivers had put upon him. The canny sense within him continued to whisper that until the ankle was sound he must bide his time. Reivers and he were too nearly a pair to give him the slightest chance for success if he essayed defiance at even the slightest disadvantage.