Bemmon’s lips thinned and hatred was like a sheen on his face. Prentiss looked from the single stake Bemmon had cut that morning to Bemmon’s white, unblistered hands. He looked at the hatchet that Bemmon had thrown down in the rocks and at the V notch broken in its keen-edged blade. It had been the best of the very few hatchets they had.⁠ ⁠…

“The next time you even nick that hatchet I’m going to split your skull with it,” he said. “Pick it up and get back to work. I mean work . You’ll have broken blisters on every finger tonight or you’ll go on the log-carrying force tomorrow. Now, move!”

What Bemmon had thought to be his wrath deserted him before Prentiss’s fury. He stooped to obey the order but the hatred remained on his face and when the hatchet was in his hands he made a last attempt to bluster:

“The day may come when we’ll refuse to tolerate any longer your sadistic displays of authority.”

“Good,” Prentiss said. “Anyone who doesn’t like my style is welcome to try to change it⁠—or to try to replace me. With knives or clubs, rifles or broken hatchets, Bemmon⁠—any way you want it and any time you want it.”

“I⁠—” Bemmon’s eyes went from the hatchet in his half raised hand to the long knife in Prentiss’s belt. He swallowed with a convulsive jerk of his Adam’s apple and his hatchet-bearing arm suddenly wilted. “I don’t want to fight⁠—to replace you⁠—”

He swallowed again and his face forced itself into a sickly attempt at an ingratiating smile. “I didn’t mean to imply any disrespect for you or the good job you’re doing. I’m very sorry.”

Then he hurried away, like a man glad to escape, and began to chop stakes with amazing speed.

But the sullen hatred had not been concealed by the ingratiating smile; and Prentiss knew Bemmon was a man who would always be his enemy.