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He drew his hand across his dripping forehead. "We'll get the trestle yet and it's that we want, isn't it? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll lie around and blow it up myself, if I have to spend the whole winter here." Koppy broke into an insulting laugh. "You! And the trestle ain't all we want. Who pays for last night's deaths? You blow up the trestle! What about Mr. Conrad?
In moments of carefully developed hysteria they were reckless enough when the hour came they would probably go forward blindly, with the foolhardiness of the ignorant but Koppy's methods to-night were singularly unenflaming. Werner expressed himself first: "Like hell we do!" Koppy ignored their agitation; for some reason he did not choose to exercise then the petty arts of the leader.
With a smile he selected a thick-stemmed tree and, with the aid of willing and suddenly excited hands, lifted himself to the lower boughs. There, leaning against the trunk, a circle of projecting boughs about him, he laughed. Torrance lay in full view. Gloatingly Koppy slid his rifle along a convenient branch, took aim, and fired. The ring of metal told how close he was.
No, Mira, I'll git it across myself. It's down stream, an' I wantuh show yuh she ain't so bad a boat fer a cow-puncher to make with wooden trees outen a wooden head. I got all my ole muscles back . . . workin' fer Torrance, dang hard work, too, to say nothin' o' them dirty Poles and other cats. . . . I gotta turn up to the minute every mornin' ur they wanta know why. That nigger, Koppy!
As a born gambler he had no compunctions at staking everything on one throw. Directly away from the grade he led deep into the woods, and all about them was movement, silent, individual, wrapped in the promise of the meeting. Presently Koppy made a peremptory motion of his hand. "Wait!"
"A man brings a daughter into the world," he sulked, "frets and stews and labours over her until she's old enough to fall in love with some young fellow who never had a moment's worry about her." "And so it has been since ribs ceased to become women," grinned Conrad. "It's only another beauty mark, Tressa. It's stopped bleeding already." He turned angrily on Koppy.
"I don't know what hold you have over that damned crew," Torrance stormed, "but if you'd make them watch the horses you'd be earning your money better than running up here." "That damned crew steal no horses," Koppy objected with dignity. "I hold my men yes," he went on proudly. "You pay me for that. I make them obey boss. Ignace Koppowski make them " "Yes, yes," Conrad broke in testily.
Conrad began seriously to fight his way over to Torrance. Across the crowd he could see Koppy making headway at last, and he vaguely wondered why. A face loomed before him, and he struck into it viciously. It dropped away, but a shooting pain across his scalp warned him that he was cut; a moving spot of warm moisture on the back of his neck located a small stream of blood.
"I want you back here, Koppy." Without excitement, without apparent annoyance, he thrust the Pole ahead into the building. A hundred and fifty evil countenances glared at them from about the long tables, some openly defiant, some only uncomfortable; all sullen and prepared to resist under the influence of what Koppy had just hurled at them in impassioned words.
"Er what's that?" Werner had straightened on the bunk and was regarding his leader with fearful eyes. "Ah yes Saturday night. But don't you think a week from now, say next Tuesday " "Saturday night," repeated Koppy. "If you wouldn't be so swift, Koppy, I was going to point out that the moon will be darker a few days later. I'm a regular nightingale when it comes to the dark."
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