McLagan’s tone was cold. His manner was inflexible. And somehow the other remained silent.
They rounded a broad bluff of woodland that mounted the hillside, and all view of Caspar’s hut was obscured. Now the great waters of the Lias came into view. Its wide valley opened out in a splendid picture of forest, and hill, and the smiling sheen of the river’s waters.
“You beat me, Mac,” Len went on, in a tone of puzzlement. All his protest had died out of his manner. “How? He’ll hang in twenty-four hours? Will you tell me?”
McLagan’s pace increased. He was gazing away down at the great river. And suddenly a hot light filled his eyes, and left them frowning.
“Len, boy, cut it all out!” he cried irritably. “What sort of white-livered bunch of craziness do you take me for? What have I been working for these weeks, an’ months, but to hand that boy his med’cine? Say, if you’d been here months back and seen that poor mother woman’s grief, that poor girl’s grief, you’d have known some of the thing I feel. Those two gentle souls are mine. One of ’em’s going to be my wife, to live with me through the years of our lives. That boy’s going to die the only right way for a feller of his sort. He’s going to hang—just as sure as God.”
He laughed mirthlessly.
“I can’t bring that poor feller Jim back alive,” he went on. “But I can see that feller hangs. Why, I owe it him anyway for myself. If he lived he’d get me one way or another. No. He’s going to swing, as I say.”
The landing on the river was in full view when Len put his sharp question. Sasa Mannik was down there with his canoe waiting watchfully his boss’s return.
McLagan turned. His face was unsmiling.
“That’s not for you—yet. Someday you may learn things. Meanwhile get a holt on this. You’ve my word of honour as a man the thing’s as I say.”