“Moir kicked me. Do you understand? He placed his dirty foot on me. Do you see why I’m going to do it by myself?”
“Placed his foot on you? God’s blood! What has he done to me—robbed me, made an animal of me, stabbed me with a prod! Who has the better right to his foul life?”
“It isn’t a case of right, but of might, Mac,” chuckled Reivers. “I’ve got the better might. Therefore, will you give me your word that you’ll refrain from interfering with my actions until I’ve paid my debt to Mr. Moir, or must I go back after the harness and strap you up?”
“Cruel——”
“Promise!”
“I promise,” said MacGregor. “But it’s wrong, sore wrong. I protest.”
“All right. Protest all you want to, but do it silently. Not another word or sound out of you now until the job’s done.”
Together they crawled back to the brink above the large dugout and peered down into the darkening cavern. In a flash Reivers had his mackinaw and boots off. The cooking-fire was deserted. No one was in sight. Moir and his men and Tillie were at supper in the dugout, and Reivers’s chance had come. He swung himself silently over the brink and hung by a handhold on the rock.
“Don’t interfere, Mac,” he said warningly. “Not till I’ve paid Shanty Moir for the touch of his foot.”