THE SNOW BURNER

PART ONE: THE NATURAL MAN

CHAPTER I—HELP

The brisk November sunrise, breaking over the dark jack-pines, lighted up the dozen snow-covered frame buildings comprising the so-called town of Rail Head, and presently reached in through the uncurtained windows of the Northern Light saloon, where it shone upon the curly head of young Toppy Treplin as, pillowed on his crossed forearms, it lay in repose on one of the saloon tables.

It was a sad, strange place to find Toppy Treplin, one-time All-American halfback, but for the last four years all-around moneyed loafer and waster. Rail Head was far from the beaten path. It lay at the end of sixty miles of narrow-gauge track that rambled westward into the Big Woods from the Iron Range Railroad line, and it consisted mainly of a box-car depot, an alleged hotel and six saloons—none of the latter being in any too good repute with the better element round about.

The existence of the saloons might have explained Toppy’s presence in Rail Head had their character and wares been of a nature to attract one of his critical tastes; but in reality Toppy was there because the Iron Range Limited, bearing Harvey Duncombe’s private hunting-car, had stopped for a moment the night before out where the narrow-gauge met the Iron Range Railroad tracks.

Toppy, at that fated moment, was out on the observation platform alone. There had been a row and Toppy had rushed out in a black rage. Within, the car reeked with the mingled odours of cigarette-smoke and spilled champagne. Out of doors the first snowfall of the season, faintly tinted by a newly risen moon, lay unmarked, undefiled.

A girl—small, young, brisk and business-like—alighted from the car ahead and walked swiftly across the station platform to the narrow-gauge train that stood waiting. The anger and champagne raging in him had moved Toppy to one of those wild pranks which had made his name among his fellows synonymous with irresponsibility.

He would get away from it all, away from Harvey Duncombe and his champagne, and all that sort of thing. He would show them!

Toppy had stepped off. The Limited suddenly glided away. Toppy lurched over to the narrow gauge, and that was the last thing he had remembered of that memorable night.

As the sun now revealed him, Mr. Robert Lovejoy Treplin, in spite of his deplorable condition, was a figure to win attention of a not entirely unfavourable sort. Still clad in mackinaw and hunting-clothes, his two hundred pounds of bone and muscle and just a little too much fat were sprawled picturesquely over the chair and table, the six-foot gracefulness of him being obvious despite his rough apparel and awkward position.

His cap had fallen off and the sun glinted on a head of boyish brown curls. It was only in the lazy, good-natured face, puffy and loose-lipped, that one might read how recklessly Toppy Treplin had lived since achieving his football honours four years before.

The sun crept up and found his eyes, and Toppy stirred. Slowly, even painfully, he raised his head from the table and looked around him. The crudeness of his surroundings made him sit up with a start. He looked first out of the window at the snow-covered “street.” Across the way he saw a small, unpainted building bearing a scraggly sign, “Hotel.” Beyond this the jack-pines loomed in a solid wall.

Toppy shuddered. He turned his face toward the man behind the bar, who had been regarding him for some time with a look of mingled surprise and amusement. Toppy shuddered again.

The man was a half-breed, and he wore a red woollen shirt. Worse, there was not a sign of a mirror behind the bar. It was distressing.

“Good morning, brother,” said Toppy, concealing his repugnance. “Might I ask you for a little information this pleasant morning?”

The half-breed grinned appreciatively but sceptically.

“Little drink, I guess you mean, don’t you?” said he. “Go ’head.”

Toppy bowed courteously.

“Thank you, brother, thank you. I am sorely puzzled about two little matters—where am I anyway, and if so, how did I get here?”

The grin on the half-breed’s face broadened. He pointed at the table in front of Toppy.

“You been sleeping there since ‘bout midnight las’ night,” he exclaimed.

Toppy waved his left hand to indicate his displeasure at the inadequacy of the bartender’s reply.

“Obvious, my dear Watson, obvious,” he said. “I know that I’m at this table, because here I am; and I know I’ve been sleeping here because I just woke up. Let’s broaden the range of our information. What town is this, if it is a town, and if it is, how did I happen to come here, may I ask?”

The half-breed’s grin disappeared, gradually to give place to an expression of amazement.

“You mean to say you come to this town and don’t know what town it is?” he demanded. “Then why you come? What you do here?”

Toppy’s brow corrugated in an expression of deep puzzlement.

“That’s another thing that’s rather puzzling, too, brother,” he replied. “Why did I come? I’d like to know that, too. Like very, very much to know that. Where am I, how did I come here, and why? Three questions I’d like very, very much to have answered.”

He sat for a moment in deep thought, then turned toward the bartender with the pleased look of a man who has found an inspiration.

“I tell you what you do, brother—you answer the first two questions and in the light of that information I’ll see if I can’t ponder out the third.”

The half-breed leaned heavily across the single-plank bar and watched Toppy closely.

“This town is Rail Head,” he said slowly, as if speaking to some one of whose mental capacity he had great doubts. “You come here by last night’s train. You bring the train-crew over to have a drink; then you fall asleep. You been sleeping ever since. Now you remember?”

“Ah!”

The puzzled look went out of Toppy’s eyes.

“Now I remember. Row with Harvey Duncombe. Wanted me to drink two to his one. Stepped outside. Saw little train. Saw little girl. Stepped off big train, got on little train, and here I am. Fine little business.”

“You went to sleep in the train coming up, the conductor told me,” volunteered the half-breed. “You told them you wanted to go as far as you could, so they took you up here to the end of the line. You remember now, eh, why you come here?”

“Only too well, brother,” replied Toppy wearily. “I—I just came to see your beautiful little city.”

The bartender laughed bitterly.

“You come to a fine place. Didn’t you ever hear ‘bout Rail Head?” he asked. “I guess not, or you wouldn’t have come. This town’s the jumping-off place, that’s what she is. It’s the most God-forsaken, hopeless excuse for a town in the whole North Country. There’s only two kind of business here—shipping men out to Hell Camp and skinning them when they come back. That’s all. What you think of that for a fine town you’ve landed in, eh?”

“Fine,” said Toppy. “I see you love it dearly, indeed.”

The half-breed nodded grimly.

“It’s all right for me; I own this place. Anybody else is sucker to come here, though. You ain’t a Bohunk fool, so I don’t think you come to hire out for Hell Camp. You just got too drunk, eh?”

“I suppose so,” said Toppy, yawning. “What’s this Hell Camp thing? Pleasant little name.”

“An’ pleasant little place,” supplemented the man mockingly. “Ain’t