“Here comes sample of our work,” said Tammy, nodding toward the tunnel. “Poor Joey! Has to use tuh prod to start him with each load now.”
A grating, shuffling sound now came from the mouth of the tunnel. Following it appeared the head of a man. And Reivers needed only one glance at the emaciated countenance to know that he was looking upon the father of Hattie MacGregor.
“Giddap, Scotch jackass!” roared Moir in great good humour. “Pull it out o’ there. That’s tuh horse. Pull!”
The man came painfully, an inch at a time, out of the pit, and looked across the creek at Shanty Moir. Behind him there dragged a rough wooden sledge loaded with lumps of earth. The man was hitched to this load by a harness of straps that held his arms helpless against his sides. No strait-jacket ever held its victim more utterly helpless than the contrivance which now held James MacGregor in toils as a beast of burden. A contrivance of straps about the ankles held his legs close together.
So short were the traces by which the sledge was drawn that MacGregor could not have stood upright without having lifted the heavy load a foot or more from the ground. He made no attempt to stand so, but hung half-bowed against the harness, his eyes gleaming through the matted red hair over his brows straight at Shanty Moir.
It was the eyes that drew and held Reivers’ attention to the face, rather than to the man’s terrible situation. James MacGregor, helpless beast of burden to his tormentors that he was, was not beaten. The same clean-cut nose, mouth and chin that Reivers remembered so well in the daughter were apparent in the father’s pain-marked face. The eyes gleamed defiance. And they were wide and grey, Reivers saw, the same as the eyes that haunted him in memory’s pictures of the girl who had not feared his glance.
“Shanty Moir,” spoke MacGregor in a voice weak but firm, “when the devil made you he cursed his own work. He cursed you as a misbegotten thing not fit for hell. The gut-eating wolverine is a brave beast compared to you. Skunks would run from your company. You think you have done big work. You fool! You cannot rob me of what belongs to me and mine; you cannot kill me. As sure as there is a God in Heaven, He will let me or mine kill you with bare hands.”
Moir and his man laughed in weary fashion, as if this speech were old to them, and Reivers was amazed at an impulse within him to throw himself at Shanty Moir’s throat. He joined foolishly in the laughter to hide his confusion. What had he to do with such impulses? What business had he having any feeling for the poor enslaved man before him? He had come to Moir’s camp for one purpose: to get the gold mined there, to get a new start in life. Was it possible that he was growing weak enough to experience the feeling of pity, the impulse to help the helpless? Nonsense! He laughed loudly. His plan was one in which silly impulses of this nature had no part, and he would go through with it to the end.
“Well brayed, Scots jackass,” said the man at the thawing-pan casually. “Now pull tuh load over here. Giddap-pull!”
MacGregor leaned weakly against the harness, but the sledge had lodged and his depleted strength was insufficient to budge it.