Next morning Hattie MacGregor, after she had fed him his morning’s meal, said casually to Reivers: “You have about six days more to pump my uncle and get all he knows about my father’s mine. In six days you should be strong enough to travel, and so long and no longer do I keep you.” “Six days?” repeated Reivers. “I may take it into my head to start before.” “And that’s all the good that would do you,” she replied promptly. “You don’t go from here until you are firm on your feet, and that will be six days, about.” “Your interest flatters me,” he mocked. “Interest!” Her laugh was bitter. “No stray, wounded cur even goes from this camp till he’s fit to rustle a living on the trail. I could do no less even for you.” “And if I should make up my mind and go?” “I would shoot you if necessary to keep you here till my duty by you is done!” “You spitfire!” laughed Reivers, hiding the admiration that leaped into his eyes. “And what makes you think I’m going hunting for this alleged mine when I depart from your too warm hospitality?” “Pooh! ’Tis easy enough to see that you’re that kind—you with your long, hungry nose! I was watching you when my uncle babbled away last night. You’ve naught a thing in the world but the clothes you stand in. What would you do but go snooping around when you hear of gold? I see it in your mean eyes. Well, seek all you please. You’re welcome. You’ll not interfere with our quest. In the first place, you have not the heart to stay on the trail long enough to succeed; in the second, you’d back-track quick enough did you once come face to face with Shanty Moir.” “And you—I suppose this bad man, Shanty Moir, will quail when he sees your red hair? Or perhaps you expect to charm him as you charmed the gentleman who had you tied on the sledge?” “I do not know that,” she said without irritation. “But I do know that my uncle and I will run Shanty Moir to earth, and that he will pay in full for the wrong he has done.” “You silly, childish fool!” he broke out. “Haven’t you brains enough to realise what an impossible wild-goose chase you’re on? Since it took your father five years to find the mine, you ought to realise that it’s pretty hard to locate. Since he didn’t find it until this Moir, a prospector, came to help him, you ought to understand that it takes a miner to find it. “You’re no miner. Your uncle is no miner. You’ve neither of you had the slightest experience in this sort of thing. You wouldn’t know the signs if you saw them. You’ll go wandering aimlessly around, maybe walking over Shanty Moir’s head; because, since nobody has stumbled across his camp, it must be so well hidden that it can’t be seen unless you know right where to look. Find it! You’re a couple of children!”