“Thank your lucky stars, Treplin, that you fell in with me. I’ll rid you of the silly little ideas about right and wrong that books and false living have instilled in your head. I believe you’ve got a good head—almost as good as mine. If, for instance, you were in a situation where it was your life or the other fellow’s, you’d survive. That’s the proof of a good head. Want to learn the logging-business, do you? Good! Is your ankle strong enough for you to get around on?” Toppy took an ax-handle from the corner and, using it as a cane, hobbled around the room. “Yes, it will stand up all right,” he said. “What’s the idea?” “Come with me,” laughed Reivers, swinging toward the door. “We’re just in time for lesson number one on how to run a camp efficiently.” CHAPTER XI—“HELL-CAMP” COURT 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 respond to her look nor volunteer a greeting, but deliberately looked away from her as he kept pace with Reivers, who was setting the way toward the gate of the stockade. It was a morning such as the one when, back in Rail Head, the girl had kicked up the snow and said to him, “Isn’t it glorious?” But since then Toppy felt bitterly that he had grown so much older, so disillusioned, that never again would he be guilty of the tender feelings that the girl had evoked that morning. The sun was bright, the crisp air invigorating, and the blood bounded gloriously through his young body. But Toppy did not wax enthusiastic. He was grimly glad of the mighty stream of life that he felt surging within him; he would have use for all the might later on. But no more. The world was a harder, a less pretty place than he, in his inexperience, had fancied it before coming to Hell Camp. “What’s this lesson?” he asked gruffly of Reivers. “What are you going to show me?” “A little secret in the art of keeping brute-men satisfied with the place in life which a superior mind has allotted to them,” replied Reivers. “What is the first need of the brute? Food, of course. And the second is—fight. Give the lower orders of mankind, which is the kind to use in running a camp efficiently, plenty of food and fight, and the problem of restlessness is solved.