“Sh-sh-shtrong liquor, m-m-mishter,” he stuttered. “Awful sh-sh-shtrong liquor.”
Moir cackled in drunken triumph.
“’Tish bear’s milk, old shon. ’Tish made for men. Drink, —— ye, drink again!”
Reivers drank, drank longer and heavier than he had yet done.
“There; take the mate of that, mister, and you’ll know you been drinking,” he stammered.
Moir’s throat by this time had been burned too raw to taste, and his sight was too dulled to measure quantities. He tipped the bottle up and drained it. The dose would have killed a normal man. To Shanty Moir it brought only an inclination to slumber. His head fell forward on his breast.
With a thick-tongued snarl he sat up straight and looked at Reivers. Reivers hiccoughed, swayed in his seat, and collapsed with a drunken clatter.
Moir smiled. He winked in unobserved triumph. Then the superhuman strength with which he had fought off the effects of the liquor snapped like a broken wire, and he pitched forward on his face into the snow.
CHAPTER XXXVI—THE SNOW-BURNER BEGINS TO WEAKEN
Reivers stood up, looked down at his fallen rival and yawned.