Perhaps it was the fact that he saw the fascinations which Reivers had for her. Reivers was his enemy. They had been enemies from the moment when they first had measured each other eye to eye. He felt that he had one aim in life now, and one only; that was to prove to himself and to Reivers that Reivers was not his master.
Beyond that he had no plans. He knew that this meant a grapple which must end with one of them broken and helpless. The unfortunate one might be himself. In that case there would be no need to think of the future, and it would be just as well not to have spoken any more with the girl.
It might be Reivers. Then he would be guilty in her eyes of having injured the man for whom the girl now obviously had feelings which Toppy could construe in but one way. She cared for Reivers, in spite of herself; and she would not be inclined to friendliness toward the man who had conquered him, if conquered he should be.
The more Toppy thought it over the less enviable, to his notion, became his standing with the girl. He ended by resolutely determining to put her out of his thoughts. After all, he was no girl’s man. He had no business trying to be. For the present he saw one task laid out before him as inevitable as a revealed fate—to prove himself with Reivers, to get to grips with the cold-blooded master-man who had made him feel, with every man in camp, that the place veritably was a Hell Camp.
Reivers’ brutal dominance lay like a tangible weight upon Toppy’s spirit. He longed for only one thing—for the opportunity to stand up eye to eye with him and learn who was the better man. Beyond that he did not see, nor care. He had given up any thought that the girl might ever care for him.
CHAPTER XVII—TILLY’S WARNING
November passed, and the first half of December. The shortest days of the year were approaching, and still the cold, crisp weather, ideal for logging, continued without a break. Hell Camp continued to hum with its abnormal activity. A thaw which would spoil the sleighing and ice-roads for the time being was long over-due. With the coming of the thaw would come a temporary lull in the work of the camp.
The men prayed for the thaw; Reivers asked that the cold weather continue. It had continued now longer than he had expected or hoped, and the output of the camp already was double that of what would have been successful logging at that season. But Reivers was not satisfied. The record that he was setting served only to spur his ambition to desperation.
The longer the cold spell hung on the harder he drove. Each day, as he looked at the low, grey sky and saw that there were no signs of a break-up, he turned to and set the pace a little faster than the day before. The madness of achievement, the passion to use his powers to accomplish the impossible, the characteristics which had won him the name of Snow-Burner, were in possession. He was doing the impossible; he was accomplishing what no other man could do, what all men said was impossible; and the feat only created a hunger to do more.
The men were past grumbling now, too tired of body and too crushed of mind to give expression to their feelings. So long as the rush of work continued they were as harmless as harnessed and driven cattle, incapable of anything more than keeping step in the mad march that the Snow-Burner was leading. But all men knew that with the coming of a thaw and the cessation of work would come an explosion of the murderous hatred which Reivers’ tactics had driven into the hearts of the men. Now and then a man, driven to a state of desperation which excluded the possibility of fear, stopped and rebelled. One day a young swamper, a gangling lad of twenty, raging and weeping, threw himself upon Reivers like a cat upon a bear. Reivers, with a laugh, thrust him off and kicked him out of the way. Another time a huge Slav sprang at him with his razor-edged ax up-raised, and, quailing before Reivers’ calm look, hurled the ax away with a scream and ran blindly away into the trackless woods. Three days later, starving and with frozen hands and feet, he came stumbling up to the stockade and fell in a lump.