“Lad, he swallowed it all, for it’s four years since he knew me first, and that was the first lie I’d told him at all. ‘I’ll take him under my eye soon as I have more time,’ says he. ‘He’ll not swagger after I’ve tamed him a little.’”
“But I don’t just see——”
“Dolt! Dinna you see that noo he considers you as an overconfident young fool whom he’s going to take the conceit out of? Dinna ye see that noo you’re in the same category as the other men he’s broken down? He’ll not think it worth while to have his shotgun men handy noo when he starts in to do his breaking. He’ll start it, ye understand; not you. ’Twill be proper so. I will go this morning and tell him that the end has come; that I can not stand you longer around me. He’ll give you something to do—under him. Under him, do you see? Then you must e’en watch your chance, and—and happen I’ll manage to be around in case the guards should show up.”
“Better keep out of it altogether,” said Toppy. “They won’t use their guns in an even fight, and you couldn’t do anything with your bare hands if they did.”
“With my bare hands, no,” said Campbell, going to his bunk. “But I am not so bare-handed as you think, lad.” He dug under the blankets and held up a huge black revolver. “Canny by nature!” he said; thrusting the grim weapon under his trousers-band. “I made no idle threat when I told Reivers I would shoot his head off did he ever try to make a broken man out of me. I have had this utensil handy ever since.”
“Scotty,” cried Toppy, deeply moved at the old man’s staunch friendship, “when did you begin to plan this scheme?”
Campbell looked squarely into his eyes.
“The same day that I talked with yon lassie and learned how Reivers had fascinated her.”
“Why?”
“Dinna ye know nothing about women, lad?”