To the bohunks, mildly staring after the vanishing halfbreed, his method of reaching the top was merely foolishly exhausting; but several weeks of acquaintance had taught them to accept his silent peculiarities with nothing more than casual wonder, though they disliked him for his unsociability, for the cold contempt that twisted his lips, and for the stifled volcano that smouldered within his squinting eyes. They hated him more than ever now, with a hatred that could be liquidated only in blood. Their own criminal schemes that had taken the lives of two of their companions they did not consider, but the man who had exposed the cause of the deaths, and had made them sweat unrequited hours for exercising the only weapon they knew in their relentless fight against their bosses, must answer to them for his temerity and treason. Hereafter the halfbreed was just prey; sooner or later he would fall before the slumbering fires that knew no law but the knife, no restraint but fear.
Torrance looked up at the shadow in the doorway.
"Hey? Where did you come from?"
"Yuh sent fer me, didn't yuh?"
"I thought you were down bossing the Koppy job."
"Sartin. We jest was through when he tol' me."
"But Conrad only got down there; I saw him." Torrance squinted sternly at the halfbreed.
Mavy nodded. "I come by the trestle."
"The h—you did!"
The halfbreed shrugged his shoulders. The contractor examined him with renewed interest.