"Now don't go off at half-cock, Angus. Maybe—"
"You know the knife," he said, his own voice sounding strange in his ears.
"Well, that don't say Turkey was in this. Maybe he lost it, and somebody—"
"Quit lying to yourself!"
"By gosh, Angus, I'll bet Turkey don't know a darn thing—"
But Angus was not listening. Out of the glory of the sun rising over the ranges, one of the black moods of the Black Mackays descended on him. All his life he had struggled against the hardness and bitterness of heart inherited from his ancestors, men dour and vengeful, whose creed had been eye for eye and tooth for tooth through the clan feuds of the dim centuries. Hard and bitter men, these bygone Mackays whose blood ran in his veins, carrying the black hate in the heart, even brother against brother. There was even that Mackay of a dark memory—and his name, too, was Torquil—who after a quarrel with his brothers had slain them, all four. Old tales, these, handed down through the years, losing or gaining in the telling, perhaps, but all stormy and full of violence and hate and revenge. And in all of them there was never one of a Mackay who forgave an injury. One and all they brooded over wrong and struck in their own time. With them it was not the quick word and blow—though if other tales were true they were quick enough with both—but the deep, sullen, undying resentment under injury.
As he thought of these things with the black mood upon him, Angus' heart hardened against his brother. He did not doubt that this was Turkey's revenge. There was his knife, and he should account for it. Since he had not been alone he should tell the names of his confederates. And then, like the bitter, dour Mackay he was, Angus put the knife in his pocket and turned a grim but composed face to Rennie.
"Maybe you are right," he admitted, though he had not heard a word the other had been saying. "Let's go home and get breakfast. And say nothing at all to Jean."