“How many of you?” he asked, in a voice sharp and crisp.
“I am all alone. But hurry up! I am about all in.”
“Lead on to your fire!” said the stranger. “But if you want to live, no monkey work. I've got you lined.”
Cameron led the way to the fire. The stranger threw a swift glance around the cave, then, with eyes still holding Cameron, he whistled shrilly on his fingers. Almost immediately, it seemed to Cameron, there came into the light another man who proved to be an Indian, short, heavily built, with a face hideously ugly and rendered more repulsive by the small, red-rimmed, blood-shot eyes that seemed to Cameron to peer like gimlets into his very soul.
At a word of command the Indian possessed himself of Cameron's rifle and stood at the entrance.
“Now,” said the stranger, “talk quick. Who are you? How did you come here? Quick and to the point.”
“I am a surveyor,” said Cameron briefly. “McIvor's gang. I was left at camp to cook, saw a deer, wounded it, followed it up, lost my way, the storm caught me, but, thank God, I found this cave, and with my last match lit the fire. I was trying to cook my venison when I heard you coming.”
The grey-brown eyes of the stranger never left Cameron's face while he was speaking.
“You're a liar!” he said with cold insolence when Cameron had finished his tale. “You look to me like a blank blank horse thief or whiskey trader.”
Faint as he was with cold and hunger, the deliberate insolence of the man stirred Cameron to sudden rage. The blood flooded his pale face.