“Would not miss tuh sight of that for a pound of dust,” replied Shanty, and the three roared fiendishly together.
“You poor, misbegotten spawn,” said MacGregor, quietly beginning to eat, eyeing them one after the other. “I’ll live to spit on the shamed corpses of the lot of you.”
As the day’s work began, Reivers started to calculate each move that he and Moir made with a view to discovering the opportunity he was looking for. All that he wished was a chance to rush Shanty without giving the latter an opportunity to use his gun.
The odds of three to one against him, and Joey and Tammy armed with knives, he accepted as a matter of course. But a six-shooter in the hands of a man who could use one as Shanty Moir could was a shade too much even for him to venture against. The manner in which Moir had shot up the tin cup the morning before proved how alert and sure was his trigger-finger. To make the suspicion of a move toward him, with the gun in his hand, would have spelled instant ruin.
As he watched now, Reivers saw that Moir was more vigilant than ever. He kept far away from the pit-mouth. The gun either was in his hand or hanging ready in the holster. And when Reivers saw the first load of sand he understood why.
The pay-streak had paid out. They were winnowing the drippings of dust washed down from the pocket now, and this job soon would be done. Moir was not taking any chances of losing at this stage of affairs. The fortune was in his grasp; he would break camp and be off in the same hour that the sand began to run low-grade.
He took no part in the work to-day. He merely stood and watched. And Reivers watched back, and the hours passed, and the short day began to draw to a close, and still not the slightest chance to rush Shanty Moir and live had presented itself.
As the early twilight began to creep down into the cavern, the ugly grins with which Joey and Tammy regarded MacGregor began to increase. Suddenly Tammy, washing a pan of sand in the brook, threw up both hands.
“Not a trace in the last load, Shanty!” he shouted.
“All out!” came Moir’s bellow, as if he had been waiting for the signal.