“‘Davis on Fractures’,” he grunted. “Cram up on it to-morrow. There will be need of your help before long. Go on, Scotty; you were saying that a just retribution was Nature’s law. Go on.” And Toppy rolled into his bunk, to lie wide awake, listening to the argument, marvelling at the character of Reivers, and pondering over the strange situation he had fallen into. He scarcely thought of what Harvey Duncombe and the bunch would be thinking about his disappearance. His thoughts were mainly occupied with wondering why, of all the women he had seen, a slender little girl with golden hair should suddenly mean so much to him. Nothing of the sort ever had happened to him before. It was rather annoying. Could she ever have a good opinion of him? Probably not. And even if she could, what about Reivers? Toppy was firmly convinced that the speech which Reivers had made to Miss Pearson was a false one. Reivers might have a great reputation for always keeping his word, but Toppy, after what he had seen and heard, would no more trust to his morals than those of a hungry bear. If Tilly, the squaw, told Reivers what she had heard, what then? Well, in that case they would soon know whether Reivers meant to keep his promise not to bother Miss Pearson with his attentions. Toppy set his jaw grimly at the thought of what might happen then. The mere thought of Reivers seemed to make his fists clench hard. He lay awake for a long time with Reivers’ voice, coldly bantering Campbell, constantly in his ears. When Reivers finally went away he fell asleep. Before his closed eyes was the picture of the girl as, in the morning, she had kicked up the snow and looked up at him with her eyes deliciously puckered from the sun; and in his memory was the stinging recollection that she had called him a “nice boy.” CHAPTER VIII—TOPPY WORKS 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 him he would. The dour old Scot took it as his religious duty to give his helper a severe introduction to the world of manual labour, and circumstances aided him in his aim. Two dozen huge wooden sleighs had come from the “wood-butcher”—the camp carpenter-shop—to be fitted with cross-rods, brace-irons and runners. Out in the woods the ice-roads, carefully sprinkled each night, were alternately freezing and thawing, gradually approaching the solid condition which would mean a sudden call for sleighs to haul the logs, which lay mountain-high at the rollways, down to the river. One cold night and day now, and the call would come, and David Campbell was not the man to be found wanting—even if handicapped by a helper with hands as soft as a woman’s.