The Snow-Burner

I. "Help!" 9 II. The Girl 16 III. Toppy Gets A Job 21 IV. "Hell-Camp" Reivers 31 V. Toppy Overhears a Conversation 39 VI. "Nice Boy!" 44 VII. The Snow-Burner's Creed 51 VIII. To...

XXII. The Cheating of the River 175 XXIII. The Girl Who Was Not Afraid 183 XXIV. The Woman's Way 193 XXV. Gold! 202 XXVI. The Look in a Woman's Eyes 212 XXVII. On the Trail of F...

The brisk November sunrise, breaking over the dark jack-pines, lighted up the dozen snow-covered frame buildings comprising the so-called town of Rail Head, and presently reache...

Toppy sat and stared across the street at her with a feeling much like awe. The girl was standing forth in the full morning sunlight, and Toppy's first impulse was to cross the...

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 child...

In the face of things there was nothing about the place to suggest that it deserved the title of Hell Camp. The Cameron Dam Camp, as Toppy saw it now, consisted of seven neat lo...

"Come in," spluttered a moist, cheery voice, and Toppy entered. The old blacksmith, naked to the waist and soaped from shoulders to ears, looked up from the steaming tub in whic...

The girl was sitting in a big chair before a desk in the farther corner of the room. She was dressed just as she had been on the drive; she had not removed cap, coat or gloves s...

"Eh, lad, but you're the slow one!" greeted the gruff old Scot as Toppy entered. "You're set a record in this camp; no man yet has been able to consume so much time getting a pa...

At daylight next morning began Toppy's initiation as a blacksmith's helper. For the next four days he literally earned his bread in the sweat of his brow, as Campbell had warned...

When he awoke again to clear consciousness, it was morning. The sun which came in through the east window shone in his eyes and lighted up the room. Toppy lay still. He was quit...

"I'm feeling pretty good, thank you, Reivers," said Toppy quietly, though the voice of the man had thrilled him with the challenge in it. He turned his head slowly and looked up...

As Reivers led the way out of the shop Toppy saw that Miss Pearson was standing in the door of the office across the way. He saw also that she was looking at him. He did not res...

Next morning, in the cold stillness which precedes the coming of daylight in the North, Toppy stood leaning on his axe-handle cane and watched his crew of a dozen men file out o...

Reivers did not come to the shop that night for his evening diversion, nor did Toppy see him at all during the next day. But in the morning following he saw that Reivers had tak...

When Toppy went back to the shop that evening he found old Campbell cooking the evening meal with only his right hand in use, the left being wrapped in a neat bandage.

In the morning, before the time for beginning the day's work, Toppy went to the stockade; and with one of his English-speaking Slavs acting an interpreter hunted up the Torta br...

That night came the heavy snow for which the loggers had been waiting, and a rush of activity followed in Hell Camp. The logs which had lain in the woods for want of sleighing n...

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....

Old Campbell arose at his usual time, surprised and pleased to find that Toppy had breakfast already cooked and on the table. Being a canny Scot, he did not express his surprise...

It was past sunrise now; the mugginess in the air had fled before the unclouded sun, and the day was pleasantly bright and warm. The sunlight coming in through the eastern windo...

Toppy stood and looked down at his vanquished foe. The convulsive rise and fall of his breast as he panted for breath told how desperately and savagely he had fought. Now as he...

"I dunno, lad, I dunno," he muttered as he patched up the ragged cuts. "It was the poetry of justice that the men should have had him, but I dunno that I could ha' left him lie...

Like wolves in revolt the men of "Hell Camp" lined the bank of the rushing, ice-choked river and cursed and roared into the blackness of the night. Behind them the buildings of...

Break of day in Winter time comes to the Dead Lands slowly and without enthusiasm, as if the rosy morning sun wearied at the hopeless landscape which its rays must illumine. Aim...

"Let be, let be," grumbled the big voice, but nevertheless Reivers felt the bottle withdrawn from his lips. "'Tis no tender child that a good drink of liquor would hurt that we...

"There's no need of your feeding me by hand any longer," said he. "I assure you I'll enjoy my food much better alone than I do with you feeding me."

"You have about six days more to pump my uncle and get all he knows about my father's mine. In six days you should be strong enough to travel, and so long and no longer do I kee...

Reivers travelled steadily for an hour at the best pace that was in him. It was not a good pace, for he was far from being in his old physical condition, and the lift and swing...

The snarling of dogs being put into harness awoke him in the morning, but he lay pretending to sleep until Tillie, having overseen the hitching-up, came in, prepared food over t...

"Oh, Snow-Burner! 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 fr...

In the big tepee Reivers rolled on his blankets and cursed himself for his weakness. What had happened to him? Was he getting to be like other men, that he would let the memory...

A day after Reivers drove out of the Indian camp, Dumont's Camp had something to talk about. A half-witted, crippled-up squaw-man went through with a couple of squaws, and the y...

And Fifty Mile talked. It talked to all who came in from the white wastes of the country around. It talked in its tents. It talked while trifling with Black Pete's games of no-c...

Reivers' tumultuous scheme of life often had led him into situations where his life had hung on his ability to play artistically the part he had assumed. But never had his self-...

Reivers led the way to his tepee and bade Moir wait a moment by the fire, while he spoke to Tillie. "Dress yourself and Neopa in your newest," he commanded. "Then do you both co...

Under Reivers' sharp orders--given in a way that would have startled Moir had he heard--Tillie and Neopa hurriedly packed the dog-sledges with their belongings, harnessed the do...

He bent cautiously over Moir. The Welshman lay with his face half buried in the crusted snow, his lungs pumping like huge bellows, and the snow flying in gusts from around his n...

Shanty Moir stirred when the first rays of the morning sun, glancing off the snow, struck his eyes. He rose like a musk-ox lifting itself from its snow wallow, with mighty heave...

Reivers' first impression was that he was standing in a gigantic stockade. The second that he was on the floor of a great quarry-pit. Then, when the situation grew clear to him,...

The three men moved forward until they were within arm's reach of Reivers, and stood regarding him with open grins on their hairy faces. Reivers, reading the import of their gri...

Reivers tried. His head had no more than appeared outside when the dog sprang. The chain jerked him back as his teeth clashed where Reivers' head had been. He leaped thrice more...

Reivers came forth from the dugout, stooped and shaking, the drunken squaw-man's morning condition to perfection, but in reality alert and watchful for the opportunity he was se...

With MacGregor leading the way, Reivers humbly picked up his rope and helped drag the sledge into the mine. The tunnel, high and broad enough only for two men to crawl abreast,...

"Oh, Snow-Burner!" It was Tillie who came, bearing the evening food, and Reivers crept out on the sand to meet her. "Oh, Snow-Burner," she whispered quietly, "I am weary of this...

The day opened as the day before had opened. A bellow from Shanty Moir, and Reivers strapped MacGregor into his harness again and they tumbled out to their rude morning meal. Ag...

Reivers caught hold of a spear of rock the instant his head came out of water, and held on. He did not try to think or understand at first. Sufficient to know that he was alive...

With a twist of his body he threw his stockinged feet forward and caught toe-holds on the rough surface of the wall. Next he released his right hand and fumbled downward till he...

"And now the Snow-Burner has his gold. He has robbed the great Iron Hair in his own camp. Great is the Snow-Burner! Now he has the gold which he longed for. Now he is rich. The...