“Good evening, gentlemen,” greeted Reivers lightly, pulling a chair up to the reading-table. “It is a pleasure to find intelligent society after having spent the last hour handling the broken leg of a miserable brute on two legs. Bah! The whisky, Scotty, please. I wonder what miracles of misbreeding have been necessary to turn out alleged human beings with bodies so hideous compared to what the human body should be. Treplin, if you or I stripped beside those Hunkies the only thing we’d have in common would be the number of our legs and arms.” 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.” 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?” Toppy shook his head. He was in no mood to debate abstract problems with Reivers. “Count me out until I’m a little acquainted with the situation,” he said. “I’m a stranger in a strange land. I’ve just dropped in—from almost another world you might say.” In a vain attempt to escape taking sides in what was evidently an old argument he hurriedly rattled off the story of his coming to Rail Head and thence to Hell Camp, omitting to mention, however, that it was Miss Pearson who was responsible for the latter part of his journey. Reivers smote his huge fist upon the table as Toppy finished. “That’s the kind of a man for me!” he laughed. “Got tired of living the life of his class, and just stepped out of it. No explanations; no acknowledgement of obligations to anybody. Master of his own soul. To —— with the niceties of civilisation! Treplin, you’re a man after my own scheme of life; I did the same thing once—only I was sober.