“Man, whoever are you or whatever are you, to take it that Duncan MacGregor feels any need to apologise to you?” The words were further balm to Reivers’s new-found feeling of comfort and content. “Say that again, please,” he requested drowsily. Laughingly the giant by the fire repeated his query. “Good!” murmured Reivers. “I just wanted to be sure that you didn’t know who I am—or, rather, who I was?” “Blood o’ the de’il!” laughed the Scotchman. “So it’s that, is it? Tell me, how much reward is there offered for you, dead or alive? I’m a thrifty man, lad, and you hardly look like a man who’d have a small price on his head.” “Wrong, quite wrong, my suspicious friend,” said Reivers. “I see you’ve the simple mind of the man who’s spent much time in lone places. You jump at the natural conclusion. When you know me better you’ll know that that won’t apply to me.” “Well,” drawled the Scotchman good-naturedly, “I do not say that it looks suspicious to be found a two-days’ march out in the Dead Lands, without food, dog, or weapons, with an empty belly and a hole through the shoulder, but there are people who might draw the conclusion that a man so fixed was travelling because some place behind him was mighty bad for his health. But I have no doubt you have an explanation? No doubt ’tis quite the way you prefer to travel?” “Under certain circumstances, it is,” said Reivers. “Aye; under certain circumstances. Such as an affair with a ‘Redcoat,’ for instance.” “Wrong again, my simple-minded friend. You’re quite welcome to bring the whole Mounted Police here to look me over. I’m not on their lists, or the lists of any authority in the world, as ‘wanted.’” “For that insult—that I’m of the kind that bears tales to the police—I’ll have an accounting with you later on,” said MacGregor sharply. “For the rest—you’ll admit that you’re under some small obligation to us—will you be kind enough to explain what lay behind you that you should be out on the barrens in your condition? I’ll have you know that I am no man to ask pay for succouring the sick or wounded. Neither am I the man to let any well man be near-speaking with my ward and niece, Hattie MacGregor, without I know what’s the straight of him.” Reivers turned luxuriously in his bunk and regarded his inquisitor with a smile. “Poor, dainty, helpless, little lady!” he mocked. “So weak and frail that she needs a protector. Never carries anything more than an eight-inch knife up her sleeve. You do right, MacGregor; your niece certainly needs looking after. She certainly doesn’t know how to take care of herself.