Читать книгу The Snow-Burner - Henry Oyen - Страница 6

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Toppy gasped. In the first place, he had not been thinking of her as a “working girl.” None of the girls that he knew belonged to that class. The notion that she, with the childish dimple in her chin and the roses in her cheeks, was a girl who made her own living was hard to assimilate; the idea that she was going out to a camp in the woods—out to Hell Camp—to work was absolutely impossible!

“Keep books?” said Toppy, bewildered. “Do they keep books in a—in a logging-camp?”

It was her turn to look surprised.

“Do you know anything about Cameron Dam?” she asked.

“Nothing,” admitted Toppy. “It’s a logging-camp, though, isn’t it?”

“Rather more than that, as I understand it,” she replied. “They are building a town out there, according to my letter. There are over two hundred people there now. At present they’re doing nothing but logging and building the dam; but they say they’ve found ore out there, and in the Spring the railroad is coming and the town will open up.”

“And—and you’re going to keep books there this Winter?”

She nodded. “They pay well. They’re paying me seventy-five dollars a month and my board.”

“And you don’t know anything about the place?”

“Except what they’ve written in the letter engaging me.”

“And still you’re going out there—to work?”

“Of course,” she said cheerfully. “Seventy-five-dollar jobs aren’t to be picked up every day around here.”

“I see,” said Toppy. He remembered Harvey Duncombe’s champagne bill of the night before and grew thoughtful. He himself had shuddered a short while before, at waking in a bar where there was no mirror, and he had planned to wire Harvey for five hundred to take him back to civilisation. And here was this delicate little girl—as delicate to look upon as any of the petted and pampered girls he knew back East—cheerfully, even eagerly, setting her face toward the wilderness because therein lay a job paying the colossal sum of seventy-five dollars a month! And she was going alone!

A reckless impulse swayed Toppy. He decided not to wire Harvey.

“I see,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ll go find this agent. You’d better wait inside the hotel.”

He crossed the street and systematically began to search through the six saloons. In the third place he found his man shaking dice with an Indian. The agent was a lean, long-nosed individual who wore thick glasses and talked through his nose.

“Yes, I’m the Cameron Dam agent,” he drawled, curiously eying Toppy from head to toe. “Simmons is my name. What can I do for you?”

“I want a job,” said Toppy. “A job out at Hell Camp.”

The agent laughed shortly at the name.

“You’re wise, are you?” he said. “And still you want a job out there? Well, I’m sorry. That load of Bohunks across the street fills me up. I can’t use any more rough labour just at present. I’m looking for a blacksmith’s helper, but I guess that ain’t you.”

“That’s me,” said Toppy resolutely. “That’s the job I want—blacksmith’s helper. That’s my job.”

The agent looked him over with the critical eye of a man skilfully appraising bone and muscle.

“You’re big enough, that’s sure,” he drawled. “You’ve got the shoulders and arms, too, but—let’s see your hands.”

Toppy held up his hands, huge in size, but entirely innocent of callouses or other signs of wear. The agent grinned.

“Soft as a woman’s,” he said scornfully. “When did you ever do any blacksmithing? Long time ago, wasn’t it? Before you were born, I guess.”

Toppy’s right hand shot out and fell upon the agent’s thin arm. Slowly and steadily he squeezed until the man writhed and grimaced with pain.

“Wow! Leggo!” The agent peered over his thick glasses with something like admiration in his eyes. “Say, you’re there with the grip, all right, big fellow. Where’d you get it?”

“Swinging a sledge,” lied Toppy solemnly. “And I’ve come here to get that job.”

Simmons shook his head.

“I can’t do it,” he protested. “If I should send you out and you shouldn’t make good, Reivers would be sore.”

“Who’s this man Reivers?”

The agent’s eyes over his glasses expressed surprise.

“I thought you were wise to Hell Camp?” he said.

“Oh, I’m wise enough,” said Toppy impatiently. “I know what it is. But who’s this Reivers?”

“He’s the boss,” said Simmons shortly. “D’you mean to say you never heard about Hell-Camp Reivers, the Snow-Burner?”

“No, I haven’t,” replied Toppy impatiently. “But that doesn’t make any difference. You send me out there; I’ll make good, don’t worry.” He paused and sized his man up. “Come over here, Simmons,” he said with a significant wink, leading the way toward the door. “I want that job; I want it badly.” Toppy dived into his pockets. Two bills came to light—two twenties. He slipped them casually into Simmons’ hand. “That’s how bad I want it. Now how about it?”

The fashion in which Simmons’ thin fingers closed upon the money told Toppy that he was not mistaken in the agent’s character.

“You’ll be taking your own chances,” warned Simmons, carefully pocketing the money. “If you don’t make good—well, you’ll have to explain to Reivers, that’s all. You must have an awful good reason for wanting to go out.”

“I have.”

“Hiding from something, mebbe?” suggested Simmons.

“Maybe,” said Toppy. “And, say—there’s a young lady over at the hotel who’s looking for you. Said you were to furnish her with a sleigh to get out to Cameron Dam.”

An evil smile broke over the agent’s thin face as he moved toward the door.

“The new bookkeeper, I suppose,” he said, winking at Toppy. “Aha! Now I understand why you——”

Toppy caught him two steps from the door. His fingers sank into the man’s withered biceps.

“No, you don’t understand,” he hissed grimly. “Get that? You don’t understand anything about it.”

“All right,” snapped the cowed man. “Leggo my arm. I was just joshing. You can take a joke, can’t you? Well, then, come along. As long as you’re going out you might as well go at once. I’ve got to get a double team, anyhow, for the lady, and you’ve got to start now to make it before dark. Ready to start now?”

“All ready,” said Toppy.

At the door the agent paused.

“Say, you haven’t said anything about wages yet,” he said quizzically.

“That’s so,” said Toppy, as if he had forgotten. “How much am I going to get?”

“Sixty a month.”

The agent couldn’t understand why the new man should laugh. It struck Toppy as funny that a little girl with a baby dimple in her chin should be earning more money than he. Also, he wondered what Harvey Duncombe and the rest of the bunch would have thought had they known.

Toppy followed the agent to the stable behind the hotel, where Simmons routed out an old hunchbacked driver who soon brought forth a team of rangy bays drawing a light double-seated sleigh.

“Company outfit,” explained Simmons. “Have to have a team; one horse can’t make it. You can ride in the front seat with the driver. The lady will ride behind.”

As Toppy clambered in Simmons hurriedly whispered something in the ear of the driver, who was fastening a trace. The hunchback nodded.

“I got this job because I can keep my mouth shut,” he muttered. “Don’t you worry about anybody pumping me.”

He stepped in beside Toppy; and the bays, prancing in the snow, went around to the front of the hotel on the run. There was a wait of a few minutes; then Simmons came out, followed by the girl carrying her suitcase. Toppy sprang out and took it from her hand.

“You people are going to be together on a long drive, so I’d better introduce you,” said Simmons. “Miss Pearson, Mr. ——”

“Treplin,” said Toppy honestly.

“Treplin,” concluded Simmons. “New bookkeeper, new blacksmith’s helper. Get in the back seat, Miss Pearson. Cover yourself well up with those robes. Bundle in—that’s right. Put the suitcase under your feet. That’s right. All right, Jerry,” he drawled to the driver. “You’d better keep going pretty steady to make it before dark.”

“Don’t nobody need to tell me my business,” said the surly hunchback, tightening the lines; and without any more ado they were off, the snow flying from the heels of the mettlesome bays.

For the first few miles the horses, fresh from the stable and exhilarated to the dancing-point by the sun, air and snow, provided excitement which prevented any attempt at conversation. Then, when their dancing and shying had ceased and they had settled down to a steady, long-legged jog that placed mile after mile of the white road behind them with the regularity of a machine, Toppy turned his eyes toward the girl in the back seat.

He quickly turned them to the front again. Miss Pearson, snuggled down to her chin in the thick sleigh-robes, her eyes squinting deliciously beneath the sharp sun, was studying him with a frankness that was disconcerting, and Toppy, probably for the first time in his life, felt himself gripped by a great shyness and confusion. There was wonderment in the girl’s eyes, and suspicion.

“She’s wise,” thought Toppy sadly. “She knows I’ve been hitting it up, and she knows I made up my mind to come out here after I talked with her. A fine opinion she must have of me! Well, I deserve it. But just the same I’ve got to see the thing through now. I can’t stand for her going out all alone to a place with a reputation like Hell Camp. I’m a dead one with her, all right; but I’ll stick around and see that she gets a square deal.”

Consequently the drive, which Toppy had hoped would lead to more conversation and a closer acquaintance with the girl, resolved itself into a silent, monotonous affair which made him distinctly uncomfortable. He looked back at her again. This time also he caught her eyes full upon him, but this time after an instant’s scrutiny she looked away with a trace of hardness about her lips.

“I’m in bad at the start with her, sure,” groaned Toppy inwardly. “She doesn’t want a thing to do with me, and quite right at that.”

His tentative efforts at opening a conversation with the driver met instant and convincing failure.

“I hear they’ve got quite a place out here,” began Toppy casually.

“None of my business if they have,” grunted the driver.

Toppy laughed.

“You’re a sociable brute! Why don’t you bark and be done with it?”

The driver viciously pulled the team to a dead stop and turned upon Toppy with a look that could come only from a spirit of complete malevolence.

“Don’t try to talk to me, young feller,” he snapped, showing old yellow teeth. “My job is to haul you out there, and that’s all. I don’t talk. Don’t waste your time trying to make me. Giddap!”

He cut viciously at the horses with his whip, pulled his head into the collar of his fur coat with the motion of a turtle retiring into its shell, and for the rest of the drive spoke only to the horses.

Toppy, snubbed by the driver and feeling himself shunned, perhaps even despised, by Miss Pearson, now had plenty of time to think over the situation calmly. The crisp November air whipping his face as the sleigh sped steadily along drove from his brain the remaining fumes of Harvey Buncombe’s champagne. He saw the whole affair clearly now, and he promptly called himself a great fool.

What business was it of his if a girl wanted to go out to work in a place like Hell Camp? Probably it was all right. Probably there was no necessity, no excuse for his having made a fool of himself by going with her. Why had he done it, anyhow? Getting interested in anything because of a girl was strange conduct for him. He couldn’t call to mind a single tangible reason for his actions. He had acted on the impulse, as he had done scores of times before; and, as he had also done scores of times before, he felt that he had made a fool of himself.

He tried to catch the girl’s eyes once more, to read in them some sign of relenting, some excuse for opening a conversation. But as he turned his head Miss Pearson also turned and looked away with uncompromising severity. Toppy studied the purity of her profile, the innocence of the baby dimple in her chin, out of the corner of his eye. And as he turned and glanced at the evil face of the hunchback driver he settled himself with a sigh, and thought—

“Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the fact that I’ve been a fool, I am glad that I’m here.”

At noon the road plunged out of the scant jack-pine forest into the gloom of a hemlock swamp. Toppy shuddered as he contemplated what the fate of a man might be who should be unfortunate enough to get lost in that swamp. A mile in the swamp, on a slight knoll, they came to a tiny cabin guarding a gate across the road. An old, bearded woodsman came out of the cabin and opened the gate, and the hunchback pulled up and proceeded to feed his team.

“Dinner’s waiting inside,” called the gate-tender. “Come in and eat, miss—and you, too; I suppose you’re hungry?” he added to Toppy.

“And hurry up, too,” growled the hunchback. “I give you twenty minutes.”

“Thank you very much,” said the girl, diving into her suitcase. “I’ve brought my own lunch.”

She brought out some sandwiches and proceeded to nibble at them without moving from the sleigh. Toppy tumbled into the cabin in company with the hunchback driver. A rough meal was on the table and they fell to without a word. Toppy noticed that the old woodsman sat on a bench near the door where he could keep an eye on the road. Above the bench hung a pair of field-glasses, a repeating shotgun and a high-power Winchester rifle.

“Any hunting around here?” asked Toppy cheerily.

“Sometimes,” said the old watcher with a smile that made Toppy wonder.

He did not pursue the subject, for there was something about the lonely cabin, the bearded old man, and the rifle on the wall that suggested something much more grim than sport.

The driver soon bolted his meal and went back to the sleigh. Toppy followed, and twenty minutes after pulling up they were on the road again. With each mile that they passed now the swamp grew wilder and the gloom of the wilderness more oppressive. To right and left among the trees Toppy made out stretches of open water, great springs and little creeks which never froze and which made the swamp even in Winter a treacherous morass.

Toward the end of the short afternoon the swamp suddenly gave way to a rough, untimbered ridge. Red rocks, which Toppy later learned contained iron ore, poked their way like jagged teeth through the snow. The sleigh mounted the ridge, the runners grating on bare rock and dirt, dipped down into a ravine between two ridges, swung off almost at right angles in a cleft in the hills—and before Toppy realised that the end of the drive had come, they were in full view of a large group of log buildings on the edge of a dense pine forest and were listening to the roar of the waters of Cameron Dam.