KOPPY MAKES A THREAT
Though he had emerged from a perilous situation with little damage,
Torrance was nursing a keen sense of injury when Conrad returned from
his visit to the Police and saw a light still burning in the shack.
The foreman listened to the story with more concern than anger. The
danger lay not in what the bohunks demanded--they could resist
that--but in the insolent confidence that put the demand into words.
Therein, was displayed a disturbing sense of power, a reckless daring
to strike the boss in his most sensitive convictions. It could only
mean that they were prepared to bring matters to a head without loss of
time.
And the trestle was just ready for the final touches!
That the incident increased the difficulties of his own position did
not enter Conrad's head. Thoughtful eyes moving from father to
daughter, his first words betrayed his main anxiety.
"Tressa can leave right away for the East."
Surprise and indignation were added to the cloud of fury that twisted
Torrance's face; he was speechless. Tressa herself settled the
question:
"I'm not going."
"Send her out of the country for a few filthy bohunks!" sputtered her
father. He spat into the sawdust box and crammed a charge of tobacco
into his pipe with his uninjured hand, though the pain of holding the
pipe in his left hand made him wince. "I won't recognise them by so
much as a wink. They have my answer, and I imagine it was a bit
convincing--"
"The Indian can't always be on hand," said Conrad stubbornly.
Torrance screwed up his eyes.
"He's getting the habit of popping up unexpectedly. I wonder what's
the game. I thought I was strong, but that chap could whistle 'God
Save the King' and truss me up like a partridge at the same time. His
arms felt like them two trees that fell on me down Thunder Bay way.
I'd hate to have him on the other side in a fight."
The practical Conrad brought him back to the point.
"And now what?"
Torrance considered a moment.
"First we'll tell the Police. I was going to fire them off the bat,
but I'm too mad for that. I want to see them get a couple of years in
jail. I want the law to take a hand now; I've taught them _my_ law."
"What can the law do to them?"
The contractor eyed his foreman belligerently.
"What can it do? Don't you think coming up here and trying to
rough-house me is worth a year or two? Say, you don't think it was a
slapping match, or a pink tea sociable! Take a look about the room."
The sarcasm of it was pleasing to his jangling nerves. "If you don't
guess right the first time, take another. If you're off the track
then, I'll get a doctor for you--or show you this arm of mine."
"Who started it?"
Torrance leaned forward and searched Conrad's face as if he considered
him demented.
"O' course," he sneered, "you'd go into court and swear I went on the
rampage and cornered them. You'd say I caught 'em at their evening
devotions and smashed their crucifixes over their heads and tackled 'em
with a cutlass in my teeth and two revolvers--"
"You might have a little on Morani for using a knife," Conrad agreed
calmly, "but you'd have trouble finding a lawyer to take such a case.
They made a request, without violence--"
"Yah, they knelt down on their marrow-bones and begged His Highness to
grant them the small boon of letting them put their feet on his neck.
They humbly petitioned me to kick over the trestle, pay them ten
dollars a day, raise the allowance of pie, and then give them
certificates of character. You'd have done it, I suppose. Only that
isn't the way I've made a success of railway construction, my lad."
Conrad took it cheerfully. "Then imagine you take it to court. Have
you time? It'll mean Battleford for the Police trial. And what would
you win? They don't jail men even out here for defending themselves.
And what would happen the trestle in the meantime?" He saw hesitation
in Torrance's eyes. "Besides, I'd hate to be called to prove the
sweetness of your temper and your unprovocative ways."
Torrance took it out on his pipe for three minutes. "Then off you make
for the camp," he decided, "and fire them. Don't let 'em even spend
the night here. If I set eyes on one of them again there'll be murder;
I won't be responsible for myself if that cur Werner's smirking physog
gets in front of me; and I'll punch Morani on sight, just for
safety-first."
Conrad rose and went to the door, where he stood in silence a long time
looking through the darkness to the camp lights.
"I'm thinking of the work," he said gravely.
"Oh!" snapped Torrance. "I'm not, of course!"
"Sometimes I question it. Werner and Morani and Heppel were sent by
the bohunks. With Koppy they have the whole bunch in the hollow of
their hands. We couldn't face a strike at this time of the year; we'd
never get another crew now till next spring--and you couldn't stand
that. . . . Don't imagine you've cowed them through their delegation.
I'm willing to wager the camp never hears of the fight; it might
disillusion them of a fancied power. Koppy knows better than to let
them know they're licked."
"I said to fire them." Torrance spoke so calmly that Conrad searched
his eyes with unaccustomed concern. Yet the foreman did not falter.
"There are other things to consider--"
The contractor raised himself to his full height and frowned down on
the smaller man. "You seem to misunderstand your position, Adrian
Conrad. What did I hire you for?"
"For quarter what I'm worth," replied Conrad caustically.
Torrance blinked twice, then, coldly:
"From the first of this month your pay will be four hundred a month.
Now do what you're told--or your pay stops instanter."
"Then I'll have to work for nothing," said Conrad serenely. "I'm not
working for you--or you'd have been paying me four hundred for the last
two years, and some one else to look after me." He examined the
contractor up and down with frank disgust. "I don't know how any
daughter of yours keeps me here."
Tressa came to them then and seized a hand of each. They made a pretty
picture in the lighted doorway--the big, frowning father in the rear,
the smaller foreman with one foot on the step, and between them this
sweet girl whose whole horizon was bounded by them, holding a hand of
each, now dimpling, now pouting, always pleading and certain of herself.
Down in the camp the peace of night had fallen. Weary and gorged,
quieted by the evening's lounge and the music they loved, the crude
off-scourings of a dozen nations had retired to their bunks and were
sleeping as peacefully as if their consciences were clean. Here and
there a light twinkled, but as the three in the doorway looked, they
blanked out one by one. The soundless night had closed in.
Torrance moved uncomfortably. He would have yielded to anything but
disobedience, and a disobedience that entailed the retention of men who
had made a ridiculous demand and then attacked him when he refused it.
Would it look as if he feared to discipline, as if the flash of a knife
could cow him? Anything rather than knuckle down to such creatures!
"May I speak to the boss?"
A familiar voice came out of the darkness not a. yard from Conrad.
They heard it with an inward start; the training of their lives had
been never to exhibit alarm--it was one of the muscles whereby they
controlled men like these.
"I hear what happen. I come for truth."
Torrance, at the first sound, had slipped the bandage and lowered his
shirt sleeve, stained as it was. He brushed the other two aside and
filled the doorway. A sudden disgust filled him lest the Pole should
enter.
"You know the truth already, you skunk! You knew what would happen
before it happened--or you thought you did. I guess I disappointed a
few of you."
"I find Lefty with sore head and I ask why. I make them tell. My men
tell when I command. He say--"
"I don't care a tinker's cuss what he say. It's what _I_ say counts on
this job."
"Did they hurt boss?" Koppy's voice was servilely anxious. "Lefty
tell me Morani stab."
Torrance laughed contemptuously. He was stroking his moustache with
the injured hand; now he threw both arms out and repeated the sneering
laugh.
"Chico's knife is more dangerous to himself than to me." He turned
back and picked up the stiletto from the table. "Here"--tossing it on
the ground before the Pole--"tell him he dropped his needle in his
hurry; and I guess he didn't want to come back for it. It's no use to
me. Your five hundred Chicos, with all their knives and
knuckle-dusters, can't come up here and give orders."
"I fire them to-night," promised Koppy.
"No, you won't." Torrance's mind was working with unusual celerity.
"They got what was coming to them from my fists this time. Next time
they'll need a doctor--or an undertaker. Besides, it's not your
business to fire. That's all. Good-night."
"Ignace Koppowski hope young missus not frightened," came the voice
from the darkness.
"Why should she be? There ain't enough men in the camp to hurt her.
If you doubt it, refer to Werner and Morani."
Koppowski coughed. "Indian strong man. Indian save your life. Godd!
But he hurt my men. Indian look out. They never forget. You tell
him?"
"Tell him yourself," jerked the contractor. "And I'd like to be around
when you're at it. I fancy he can look after himself."
"Indian need to," said Koppy from the darkness.