“Oh ho! Getting lazy, eh?” came from the tunnel, and a thin-faced man came out, a short stick with a sharp brad in his hands. “Want help, eh? Well, here ’tis,” he chuckled, and drove the brad into MacGregor’s leg.
Again the strange impulse to leap to the tortured man’s rescue, to kill his tormentor without reckoning the price or what might come after, stirred itself in Reivers’ breast, and again he joined in the laughter to pass it off.
MacGregor started as the iron entered his flesh and the movement loosened the sledge. With weak, faltering steps he drew the load alongside the fire, where Tammy proceeded to transfer the frozen chunks of earth to the thawing-pan.
“Eh, hah! New cattle?” said the man with the prod when he espied Reivers and Tillie. “Cow and bull.”
“Cow—and an old ox, Joey,” laughed Moir. “Has even burnt his horns off with hooch, and wilt go well in the harness when he’s broke.”
“’Tis time,” said Joey. “Tuh Scots jackass’ll soon drop in his tracks.”
“Not until I’ve paid you out in full, you devils,” said MacGregor quietly. “I’ll give you an hour of living hell for every prod you’ve given me, you poor cur.”
Joey approached him and unhooked the traces from his harness with an air that told how well he was accustomed to such threats.
“Must call it a day, Shanty,” he said, loosening the straps that bound MacGregor’s hands so the forearms were free while the upper arms remained bound tightly to his sides. “Old pit’s full o’ smoke.” In bored sort of fashion he kicked MacGregor into the creek. “To your stable, jackass. Day’s done.”
MacGregor, tripped by the traps about his ankles, fell full length in the water, floundered across, and crawled miserably out of sight behind the skin front of the smaller dugout. Moir and his two henchmen watched him, jeering and laughing. At a sign the two on the other side of the creek came across and drew close to their chief.