This gate swung open at their approach, and Toppy’s second shock came when he saw that the two hard-faced men who opened it carried in the crooks of their arms wicked-looking, short-barrelled repeating shotguns. One of the men caught the horses by the head as soon as they were through the gate, and brought them to a dead stop, while the other closed the gate behind them. “Can’t you see the boss is busy?” snapped the man who had stopped the team. “You wait right here till he’s through.” Toppy now saw that they had driven into a quadrangle, three sides of which were composed of long, low, log buildings with doors and windows cut at frequent intervals, the fourth side being formed by the stockade-wall through which they had just passed. The open space which thus lay between four walls of solid logs was perhaps fifty yards long by twenty-five yards wide. In his first swift sight of the place Toppy saw that, with the stockade-gate closed and two men with riot-guns on guard, the place was nothing more nor less than an effective prison. Then his attention was riveted spellbound by what was taking place in the yard. 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. Toppy Treplin was not an impressionable young man. He had lived much and swiftly and among many kinds of men, and it took something remarkable in the man-line to surprise him. But the sight of Reivers brought from him a start, and he sat staring, completely fascinated by the Manager’s presence. It was not the size of Reivers that held him, for Toppy at first glance judged correctly that Reivers and himself might have come from the same mold so far as height and weight were concerned. 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.