“I do not want you to help me get the gold,” he said slowly. “I do not want you to give Iron Hair the sleep-medicine, to-night, or any night. I will take the gold from Iron Hair without your help. I have spoken.”
He stood looking down at her, and Tillie, looking up at him, once more was reminded that he was a white man and that the vast gulf between them never might be bridged. Wearily, hopelessly, she rose to her feet.
“The Snow-Burner has spoken; I have heard,” she whispered, and went humbly back into the large dugout.
Reivers laughed a small laugh of bitterness as he heard the flap drop behind her. He threw his head far back and gazed up at the slit of starlit sky that showed above the mouth of the cavern, and for once in his life he felt the common insignificance of human-kind alone in the vast scheme of Nature. He was weak; he had thrown away the easy way to success; he had let the memory of Hattie MacGregor’s face, flaring before his eyes in the instant that Tillie thrust her lips up to his, beat him.
He threw up his great arms and held them out, tense and hard as bars of living steel. He felt of his shoulders, his biceps, his chest, his legs, and he laughed sardonically.
“Body, you’re just as superior to other men’s bodies as you ever were,” he mused. “Yes, Body, you’re just as fit to rend and prey on others as ever. But you’re handicapped now. You’re not permitted to do things as you used to do them. Body, you’re paying the penalty of being burdened with a white man’s mind.”
MacGregor looked up as Reivers re-entered the dugout bearing the evening food. A tiny fire in one corner lighted up the room and by its flickering flames he saw Reivers’ face.
“Blood o’ God!” whispered the old man in awe. “What’s come over you, man?”
He rose on his elbow and peered more closely.
“Man—man—you ha’ not overcome Shanty Moir? You have not finished him without letting me——”