“Is an old ox, as ’ee said, Shanty, with even tuh horns burnt off him by tuh hooch,” said Joey, after the first few loads. “Keep a little o’ tuh liquor running down his throat each day and he’ll be a good draft beast to us. Nothing to fear o’ him. Didst well when ’ee picked him out, chief.”
They stopped watching him. He was harmless. Which was exactly the frame of mind which Reivers had worked to create.
MacGregor alone knew how cleverly Reivers was playing his part, and he regarded his new companion in misery with greater awe and swore beneath his breath in unholy admiration. He had excellent opportunity to appreciate Reivers’s ability to play the part of a weakling, for the Snow-Burner, when not observed, caught his free hand in MacGregor’s traces and pulled the full weight of the heavy sledge as if it had been a boy’s plaything.
“Eh, mon!” gasped the weakened Scotchman in relief. “I begin to comprehend now. ’Tis a surprise you’re planning for Shanty Moir. Oh, aye! ’Tis a braw joke. But you maun l’ave me finish him, man; ’tis my right. And I thank you and will repay you well for the favour you are doing me in my present bunged-up condition.”
“Favour your eye!” snapped Reivers. “It’s easier to pull the whole thing than to have you dragging on it. Don’t think I’m doing it for your sake. You’ll have a rude awakening, my friend, if you’re building any hopes on me.”
“I dinna understand you,” said MacGregor with a shake of his head. “You’re different from any man I ever met. But at all events, you’ve made the loads lighter, and I think I must have perished soon had you not done so.”
“Shut up!” hissed Reivers irritably. “I tell you I’m doing it because it’s easier for me.”
His attitude toward the old man was brutally domineering when they were alone and openly abusive when they were in the presence of Moir or the others. He showered foul epithets upon him, pretended to shoulder the greater part of the work on him, and abused him in a fashion that won the approval of the three brutes over them.
“Make him do his share, old sonny,” roared Moir. “Wilt have tuh prod? Joey, give him tuh prod so he can poke up tuh jackass when he lags back.”
“Don’t need no prod,” boasted Reivers. “I can handle him without any prod. Come on, pull up there, you loafer. Think I’m going to do it all?”