He ate mechanically and yet voraciously, for the exercise of the night had left him hungry. But every moment his mind was sifting the facts of the case for an out.
Hollister rose to leave. “Take care of this fellow till I get back, Tom. I don’t know what he was up to, but if anything happens to me, rush him right down to Daniels.”
“We will—in a pig’s eye,” the foreman answered bluntly. “If anything happens to you, we’ll give this bird his, muy pronto.”
The engineer was lifting the flap of the tent when Cig spoke huskily from a parched throat. “I’ll go along wid youse.”
“All right.” Not the least change of expression in his face showed that Hollister knew he had won, knew he had broken down the fellow’s stiff and sullen resistance.
Cig shuffled beside Tug to the tunnel. The months had made a difference in the bearing of the ex-service man. When the New Yorker had met him first, Hollister’s mental attitude found expression in the way he walked. He was a tramp, in clothes, in spirit, in habit of life, and in the way he carried his body. The shoulders drooped, the feet dragged, the expression of the face was cynical. Since then there had been relit in him the spark of self-respect. He was a new man.
He stepped aside, to let Cig pass first into the tunnel. At the entrance he lit two candles and handed one to his prisoner.
“What did you want to come for?” he asked. “Have you something to show me? Or something to tell me?”
Cig moved forward. He spoke over his shoulder, protecting the candle with one hand. “Just a bit of a lark. Thought I’d throw a scare into yore men.”
“How?”