“He laid me out, all right,” he grumbled to a group of “white men,” “but, give him credit for it, he give me a chanct to get up me guard. There won’t be any breaking yer bones when yuh ain’t lookin’ from him. And he wouldn’t graft on yuh, either. He’s right. That other ——, he—he ain’t human.” The fact that he had been humane enough, and daring enough, to prop up the roof of the quarry had no effect on the “white men” toward developing a respect for Toppy. They despised the Slavs too thoroughly to be conscious of any brotherhood with them. But that he could put Bill Sheedy away with a single punch, that he could warn Bill to put up his guard and then knock him out with one blow, that was something to wring respect even from that hard-bitten crew. The Snow-Burner never had done anything like that. He had laid low the biggest men in camp, but it was usually with a kick or with a blow that was entirely unexpected. The Snow-Burner never warned any body. He smiled, threw them off their guard, then smote like a flash of lightning. He had whipped half a dozen men at once in a stand-up fight, but they had been poor Bohunks, fools who couldn’t fight unless they had knives in their hands. But to tell a seasoned bruiser like Bill, the best man with his fists in camp, to put up his hands and then beat him to the knockout punch—that was something that not even the Snow-Burner had attempted to do. That was taking a chance, that was; and the Snow-Burner never took chances. That was why these cruel-fierce “white men,” though they admired and applauded him for his dominance and his ruthlessness toward the Slavs, hated Reivers with a hatred that sprang from the Northern man’s instinctive liking for fair play in a fight. They began naturally to compare him with Toppy, who had played fair and yet won. And, naturally, because such were the standards they lived and died by, they began to predict that some day the Snow-Burner and Toppy must fight, and they hoped that they might be there to see the battle.