"You did well to strike quickly," he muttered to Torrance. "A bullet would be the proper thing, but we've no direct proof; the Police would ask questions. He'll be round in a minute."
Torrance was examining the severed rope.
"Where did you find this, Mavy?"
The halfbreed pointed aloft. "Lower end o' the support the pulley was fastened to. Thar's more."
Torrance was restraining himself for lack of victims on whom to vent his wrath; Werner had retired to a discreet distance. Koppy was sitting weakly on the log, wondering what had happened. The contractor reached out one big hand and jerked him to his feet.
"Now, you—! I'll give you twenty minutes to round up them cusses of yours and get them up in that trestle. The Indian here'll show you what you got to do. And you'll stand right under all the time—and you'll stand there every time we work on the trestle. I'm going to make it worth your skin to stop this thing. And if after to-day I find a rope cut or a bolt missing I'll smash you to pulp. And Big Jim Torrance don't go back on his word. . . . What's more, you and the other dogs won't be paid for the time it takes to fix things up."
He closed his powerful fist on the Pole's shoulder so tightly that the man's face twisted.
"You think you're going to bust this job up, you and your gang. I'm telling you that before you succeed you'll wish you'd stayed in jail in your own country. I don't know what you got against the trestle, but I do know you're a hellish cuss I'm going to break to the halter. If you count to bust things up here, I'll see that the busting falls on your own head. Scat!"