MacGregor on such occasions would hold his head low to hide the gleam in his eyes and the grin that strove for room on his tightly pressed lips. His harness was hanging slack; Reivers took more of the load upon himself with every curse that he uttered.
All through the day it was Reivers’ strength that pulled the heavy sledge up the dirt incline of the tunnel, and at night, when the day’s work was done, and MacGregor, tottering feebly toward his bunk, fell helpless through the dugout’s flap, Reivers picked him up, laid him down gently and placed his own blanket beneath his head.
“God bless you, lad!” whispered MacGregor.
“Shut up!” hissed Reivers. “I don’t want any talk like that.”
He looked down at the prostrate man for a moment. Then with a muttered curse he unloosened the straps that bound MacGregor’s arms to his sides and hurled himself over to his own side of the shack. He was very angry with himself. Pity and succour for the helpless had never before been a part of his creed. Why should he trouble about MacGregor?
“I’ll have to strap you up again in the morning,” he flung out suddenly, “but it won’t hurt to have your hands free for the night. Shut up—lay still! I hear somebody coming.”
CHAPTER XLIII—“THE PENALTY OF A WHITE MAN’S MIND”
“Oh, Snow-Burner!” It was Tillie who came, bearing the evening food, and Reivers crept out on the sand to meet her. “Oh, Snow-Burner,” she whispered quietly, “I am weary of this camp. The air is bad, and the country is not open. It is in my heart to poison Iron Hair as soon as the Snow-Burner says we are ready to go from this place.”
Reivers stared at her. A short while ago he would not have been shocked in the slightest degree to have heard this—to her, natural speech—fall from Tillie’s lips. But of late another woman, another kind of woman, had been in his thoughts, and Tillie’s words left him speechless for the moment.
The squaw continued placidly—