Henry Oyen

“ That night in the camp at the river bend the Indians feasted ravenously, and Reivers, sitting in Tillie’s place as new-made chief, looked on without smiling.
“Oh, Snow-Burner!” said the oldest man at last. “What is it you want with us? Our furs? Speak. We obey your will.”
“Furs are good,” replied Reivers, “when a man has nothing else, but gold is better, and the gold that another man has is best of all.” ”

“ By the whining note in the growls of the dogs, Reivers judged that the latter was the case this evening; and when he moved forward and stood listening outside the flap of the big tepee he knew that it was so. Within, an old squaw’s treble rose faintly in a whining chant, of which Reivers caught the despairing motif:
Black is the face of the sun, Ah wo!
The time has come for the old to die. Ah wo, ah wo!
There is meat only to keep alive the young. Ah wo!
We who are old must die. ”

“ One stood up strong and straight, the muscles bulging big beneath his dark skin, his neck short and heavy, his head cropped and round. He wore a small, upturned moustache and carried himself with a certain handy air that indicated his close acquaintance with ring-events. The other man was short and dark, obviously an Italian; the skin of his body was a sickly white, his face olive green. He stood crouched, and beneath his ragged beard two teeth gleamed, like the fangs of a snarling dog.
“Antonio, the Knife-Expert, and Mahmout, the Strangling Bulgarian,” announced Reivers laughingly. ”

“ The brow-bones came down and half hid the small eyes; the nose was small, but a pair of great nostrils ran back in the skull; the mouth was huge, yet it seemed small, and there was more of the head below it than above.
Iron Hair was well nicknamed. His hair was probably three inches long, and it stood out straight from his head—black, wiry, menacing. Reivers, with his foolish grin growing larger on his face, appraised Moir with considerable admiration. Here was the real thing, the pure, unadulterated man-animal, unweakened, untouched by effeminising civilisation. ”

“ Reivers smiled a quick smile that showed a mouthful of teeth as clean and white as a hound’s.
“Let’s have your opinion on the subject, Treplin,” he said. “New opinions are always interesting, and Scotty repeats the same thing over and over again. What do you think of it? Do you think I can maintain my rule over those hundred and fifty clods out there in the stockade as I am ruling them, through the law of strength over weakness? Do you think one superior mind can dominate a hundred and fifty inferior organisms? Or do you think, with Scotty here, that the dregs can drag me down?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then Toppy spat out the blood he had held in after Reivers’ blow. The feel of the blood running down his face turned Reivers to a fury. He rushed with an 157 impetuosity which nothing could withstand, his fists playing a tattoo on Toppy’s head and body. Like a tiger Toppy fought back; but Reivers’ rage for the moment had given him added strength. He fought as a man who intends to end a fight in a hurry; he rushed and struck with power to annihilate with one blow, and rushed and struck again. ”

“ Neither was it the terrible physical power which fairly reeked from the man; for though Reivers’ rough clothing seemed merely light draperies on the huge muscles that lay beneath, Toppy had played with strong men, professionals and amateurs, enough to be blasé in the face of a physical Colossus. It was the calm, ghastly brutality of the man, the complete brutality of an animal, dominated by a human intelligence, that held Toppy spellbound. ”

“ With a snarl the great dog leaped again, his bared 294 fangs flashing in the night. The snarl died in a choke. Reivers’ long arms flashed out and his fingers caught the dog by the throat so swiftly and surely that not another sound came from between its teeth. It was a big, strong dog and it died hard, but out there on the sand Reivers sat, silently keeping his hold till the last sign of life had gone from the brute’s body. Not a sound rose to attract attention from the larger dugout. ”

“ Tillie, spilled from the sledge in the first mad rush of the team, came waddling up to Reivers and bowed down before him humbly.
“Snow-Burner, I know you are only a man, because I alone of my people have seen you among other white men,” she said. “Yet you are more than other men. Snow-Burner, I have lived among white people and know that the talk of spirits is only for children. But how knew you that the caribou were here?”
“The meat is there,” said Reivers, pointing at his kill. “Your work is to take care of it. The axe is on the sledge. ”

“ The dogs were held in leash, eager to be quit of the harsh rock-chasms through which they had just travelled, and to strike their lope on a trail over the open country beyond.
MacGregor sat wearily on one side of the sledge. The exertions and excitement of the afternoon had exhausted him in his weakened condition. He sat slumped together, only half conscious of what was going on. In a moment he would be sound asleep.
And Reivers had the gold. He had succeeded. He had the gold, and he had a supply of food and a strong, fresh team of dogs eager for the trail. ”

“ Toppy had felt it before, too often to be mistaken; and the youth in his veins responded warmly. The respect of these men was a harder thing to win than the other. He thought of how he had arrived in camp, shaky from Harvey Duncombe’s champagne, with no purpose in life, no standing among men who were doing men’s work. Grimly also he thought of how Miss Pearson, that first evening, had called him a “nice boy.” Would she call him that now, he wondered, if she could see how these rough, tired men looked up to him? Would Reivers treat him as a thing to experiment with after this? ”

“ But what can man do when the gods are against him? The gods are against you. They are not against me. To-morrow I slay you your fill of caribou.”
“Snow-Burner,” whispered one of the hunters in the awe-stricken silence that followed this announcement, “there are no caribou here. Are you greater than the gods?”
Reivers looked at him, and at the light in his eyes the young man drew back in fright.
“To-morrow I give you your fill of meat,” he said slowly. “Not only enough for one day, but enough for all Winter. Each tepee shall be piled high with meat. ”

“ For the Snow-Burner was gone. Wolf-like he had harried them and wolf-like he had died. No man, not even Hell-Camp Reivers, they knew, could live a minute in that black water. They had seen the waters close above him; a floe of ice swept serenely over the spot where he had gone down. He was gone. The world was rid of him.
And so the men of Cameron-Dam Camp, while their cry still echoed in the timber, turned to carry the news of the Snow-Burner’s end back to the men who were milling about the burning camp. The Snow-Burner was dead! ”

“ It was a battle to make men roar with frenzy; but not a sound came from the ring that expanded and closed as the battle raged here and there. The men were at first too shocked to cry out at the sight of any one daring to give the Snow-Burner fight; and after the shock had worn away they were too wary to give a sign that might bring the guards. Silently and tight-lipped the ring formed; and each pair of eyes that watched shot nothing but hatred for Reivers.
Toppy was the first to recover from the initial frensied impulse to strive to annihilate in one rush his hated enemy. ”

“ He drew toward him a tumbler which Campbell had pushed over beside the bottle and, filling the glass three-quarters full, began to drink slowly at the powerful Scotch whisky as another man might sip at beer or light wine. Old Campbell rocked slowly to and fro in his chair.
“‘He that taketh up the sword shall perish by the sword,’” he quoted solemnly. “No man is a god to set himself up, lord over the souls and bodies of his fellows. They will put out your light for you one of these days, Mr. Reivers. Have care and treat them a little more like men.” ”

“ And they were wide and grey, Reivers saw, the same as the eyes that haunted him in memory’s pictures of the girl who had not feared his glance.
“Shanty Moir,” spoke MacGregor in a voice weak but firm, “when the devil made you he cursed his own work. He cursed you as a misbegotten thing not fit for hell. The gut-eating wolverine is a brave beast compared to you. Skunks would run from your company. You think you have done big work. You fool! You cannot rob me of what belongs to me and mine; you cannot kill me. ”

“ Reivers ate leisurely of the bountiful supply of cold meat that remained of his supply. When he had his fill he tossed small portions to the old squaw, the old man and the young girl.
“Hunters are mighty,” he mocked in the Chippewa tongue, as the young men avidly eyed the meat. “They kill what they eat. The meat they do not kill would stick in their mighty throats.” ”

“ But Reivers had roused something deeper, something older, something fiercer than the feelings which had begun to stir in Toppy at the sight of the girl. Man—raw, big-thewed, world-old and always new man—had challenged unto man. And man had answered. The petty considerations of life were stripped away. Only one thing was of importance. The world to Toppy Treplin had become merely a place for Reivers, the Snow-Burner, and himself to settle the question which had cried for settlement since the moment when they first looked into each other’s eyes: Which was the better man? ”

“ Many miles of cold trail between him and the burning camp were his most urgent present needs, and with a curse he staggered to his feet and stood for a moment lowering back across the water to the scene of his overthrow.
To a lesser man—or a better man—there would have been deep humiliation in the situation. Reivers’s mind flashed back over the incidents of the last few hours. Over there, across the river, he had been beaten for the first time in his life in a fair, stand-up fist fight. He had underestimated young Treplin, and Treplin had beaten him. ”

“ In his light-blue eyes there seemed to gleam the same impersonal brutality which had shown out when he so casually crippled Rosky.
“Oh, it’s an impossible proposition, Reivers!” exploded Toppy, with the picture of the writhing Slav in his mind’s eye. “You’ve got to consider right and wrong when dealing with human beings. It isn’t natural; Nature won’t stand it.” ”

“ To the north of the swamp lay the open, snow-covered tundra, where even the knife-like fore-hoof of the caribou would have hard time to dig out a living in the dead of Winter. To the south lay clumps of brush and stunted trees, ideal shelter and feed.
The animals went north. Reivers nodded in great satisfaction. There were wolves or Indians to the south, probably the latter. Accordingly he turned southward. Toward noon he found his first moccasin track, evidently the trail of a single hunter who had come northward, but not quite far enough, on a hunt for caribou. ”

“ Do you come to us for gold? Do you think we would sit here without meat if we had gold? No, Snow-Burner. What we have you can have. Your will with the tribe from the oldest to the youngest is our law. We owe you our lives. The strength of our young men is yours; the wisdom of our old heads is yours. But gold we have not. Do not turn your frown upon us, Snow-Burner; you must know it is the truth.”
“Since when,” said Reivers sternly, “has my friend, old Little Bear, dared say that the Snow-Burner has the foolishness of a woman in his head? Do you think I come seeking gold from you? ”

“ MacGregor spoke hotly, then suddenly subsided. “Yes, you’re right, lad,” he admitted after awhile. “It’s naught but sentiment. I see now. It’s the kind of sentiment that white men die for, and that makes them the boss men of the world. Well, lad, I am sorry to hear you talk as if ’twas only your skin was white. But I do not see you top dog of this camp yet. I’ll warrant Shanty Moir didn’t allow you to slip a gun or knife into camp. And did you notice the little tool he had in his hand?”
“A six-shooter,” said Reivers. “A crude weapon compared to a good mind, MacGregor.” ”

“ Hattie MacGregor, take care. Yon man will be a different creature to handle when he has the strength back in his body.”
At the end of a week Reivers awoke as a man wakes after a long, fever-breaking slumber, weak and wasted, yet with a grateful sense of comfort and well-being. Before he opened his eyes he sensed by the warmth and odours of the air that he was in a small, tight room, and in a haze he fancied that he had fallen in the tepee of Tillie, the squaw. ”

“ He walked slowly back to the blacksmith-shop. He was glad to be left alone. Though he had permitted no sign of it to escape him, Toppy had been enraged and sickened at what he had seen in the stockade. He admitted to himself that it was not the fact that men had been disabled and crippled, nor the brutal rules that had governed, nor that men had been exposed to death at the hands of others before his eyes, that had stirred him so. It was—Reivers. Reivers sitting up there on the table playing with men’s bodies and lives as with so many cards—Reivers, the dominant, lord over his fellows. ”

“ In Reivers’ presence the men were afraid to call their thoughts their own, but behind his back the mumblings and grumblings of hatred were growing to a volume which inevitably soon must break out in the hell-yelp of a mob ripe for murder. ”

“ Each man in camp knew that he might have been in the old man’s shoes; each knew that Reivers’ anger might fall on him next. In the total of a hundred and fifty men in camp there was probably not one who did not curse Reivers and rage against his rule, and there were few who, if the opportunity had offered, would not cheerfully have taken his life. ”

“ To shame the Snow-Burner! He understood the significance of the look she had given him, and which had stood between him and Tillie. Womanhood, pure, noble womanhood, was appealing to his better self.
His better self! Reivers laughed a laugh so ghastly that it might have come from a bare skull. His better self! If a man believed in things like that he had to believe in the human race—had to believe in goodness and badness, virtue and sin, right and wrong, and all that silly, effeminate rot. Reivers didn’t believe in that stuff. ”

“ No expression betrayed what was going on behind those wood-like masks, but Reivers knew Indians and sensed that they were all waiting excitedly for his answer.
“That is the man,” he said, and by the complete silence that followed he knew that his reply had caused a sensation that would have made white men swear. “What know you of Iron Hair, Nawa?”
“Oh, Snow-Burner,” said Nawa dolefully, “our tribe knows of Iron Hair to its sorrow. Two moons ago the big man with the hair like a porcupine was at Fifty Mile for whisky and food. ”

“ It was a four-dog team, travelling rapidly, and the man, on snow-shoes, travelled beside his team and plied his whip as he strode. Reivers’ brows drew down in puzzled fashion. The sledge which whirled behind the running dogs seemed flat and unloaded; the dogs ran in a fashion that told they were strong and fresh. Why didn’t the man ride?
Reivers drew back to take stock of the situation. The man might be a stranger, travelling hurriedly through the Dead Lands, or he might be one of the men from Cameron-Dam Camp. ”

“ Moir looked at him for a moment, then slily tiptoed toward the shelter tepee and threw up the flap. The next instant a bellow of rage shattered the morning quiet. Like a maddened bear Moir was back at Reivers, cuffing, kicking, cursing, commanding that he wake up.
Reivers awoke only in degree. Not until Moir had opened a new bottle of hooch and poured a drink down his throat did he essay to sit up and open his eyes.
“Wha’ smatter? Can’t a man shleep?” he protested. “Wha’ smatter with you?”
“Matter!” bellowed Moir. “Plenty of matter, you old waster. Where’s the young lass, eh? ”

“ The white men from Dumont’s Camp and Fifty Mile have searched for the gold which white men are mad for. They found nothing. At the settlements the white men say, ‘This man must be the devil himself and go to hell for his gold, because his camp certainly is not in this world where men can see it with their eyes.’”
“And the caribou were not in this world, either?” mocked Reivers.
Nawa shook his head.
“White men, too, have looked for the camp of Iron Hair.”
“Many white men,” supplemented old Little Bear. “White men always look when they hear of gold. They find gold if it is to be found. ”

“ That was why Reivers sought it. Out there in the camp of Tillie’s people he could lie safe, well fed, well nursed, until his wound healed and the strength of his body came back to him. And then....
“Cheer up, Body!” he chuckled as he started northward. “We’ll make the world pay bitterly for all of this when we’re in shape again. For the present we’re going north, going north, going north. You can’t stop, Body; you can’t lay down. Groan all you want to. You’re going to be dragged just as far to-night as if you weren’t shot up at all.” ”

“ At night the road-crews, repairing with pick and shovel and sprinkling-tanks the wear and tear of the day’s hauling, worked under Reivers’ compelling eyes. All night long the sprinkling-tanks went up and down the ice-coated roads, and the drivers, freezing on the seats, were afraid to stop or nod, not knowing when the Snow-Burner might step out from the shadows and catch them in the act. ”

“ On the sunny side of the yard a group of probably a dozen men were huddled against the log wall. Two things struck Toppy as he looked at them—their similarity to the group of Slavs he had seen back in Rail Head, and the complete terror in their faces as they cringed tightly against the log wall. Perhaps ten feet in front of them, and facing them, stood a man alone. And Toppy, as he beheld the terror with which the dozen shrank back from the one, and as he looked at the man, knew that he was looking upon Hell-Camp Reivers, the man who was called The Snow-Burner. ”

“ Tillie smiled strangely.
“Has the Snow-Burner become afraid of Iron Hair?” she asked.
“So little afraid that I no longer need you to help me in this matter,” retorted Reivers.
The shrewd squaw shook her head.
“How will the Snow-Burner find Iron Hair’s gold how? Iron Hair will not take the Snow-Burner to his camp alone. It is not the Snow-Burner that Iron Hair wants. It is a woman. Has the Snow-Burner given up the fight to get the gold which he wants so much? He knows he can not reach Iron Hair’s camp—alone.” ”

“ 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. ”