Shanty Moir stirred when the first rays of the morning sun, glancing off
the snow, struck his eyes. He rose like a musk-ox lifting itself from
its snow wallow, with mighty heaves and grunts, and looked around.
He was blear-eyed and puffed of face, his throat was raw and burning
from the unbelievable amount of hooch he had swallowed in the night, but
his abnormal organisation had thrown off the effects of the alcohol and
he was cold sober. His first move was to cool his throat with handfuls
of snow, his second to step over and regard the apparently paralysed
Reivers with a look of mingled triumph and contempt.
"Eh, old sonny! Would a drinked with Shanty Moir, wouldst 'ee?" he
chuckled. "Happen thee got thy old soak's skin filled to overflow that
time. Get up, you waster!" he commanded, stirring the prostrate form
with a heavy foot "Up with you!"
Reivers did not stir, but he put that touch of the foot down as
something extra that Moir would have to pay for. He was apparently lying
steeped in the depths of drunken slumber, and he wished to drive the
impression firmly into Shanty Moir's mind that he had been dead to the
world all night. Hence he did not interrupt his snoring as Moir's foot
touched him.
"Laid out stiff!" laughed Moir.
He reached down, lifted Reivers' head from the snow and let it fall
heavily. Still Reivers made no sign of awakening. Moir looked at him for
a moment, then slily tiptoed toward the shelter tepee and threw up the
flap. The next instant a bellow of rage shattered the morning quiet.
Like a maddened bear Moir was back at Reivers, cuffing, kicking,
cursing, commanding that he wake up.
Reivers awoke only in degree. Not until Moir had opened a new bottle of
hooch and poured a drink down his throat did he essay to sit up and open
his eyes.
"Wha' smatter? Can't a man shleep?" he protested. "Wha' smatter with
you?"
"Matter!" bellowed Moir. "Plenty of matter, you old waster. Where's the
young lass, eh? Where's the girl gone? Look in the tepee and see what's
the matter. You told me you had the trulls buffaloed. What's become of
the young girl?"
It was some time before Reivers appeared to understand. Finally he
stumbled to his feet and started toward the tent, met Tillie as she
stepped out rubbing her eyes, and recoiled drunkenly.
"Neopa? Where is she?" muttered Tillie. "She slept near the door. Now
she is gone."
She had let her shiny black hair fall loosely over her shoulders and now
she threw it back, looked straight at Moir and smiled.
"Neopa gone?" demanded Reivers thickly. "She can't be; she wouldn't
dare."
"Dare, you fool? Look there." Moir pointed to the hollows where the
missing dog team had lain and to the tracks that ran straight and true
up the river bed. "She's run away. Been gone half a night. Well, what
have you got to say?"
Reivers turned with a scowl on Tillie, but Tillie was comfortably
plaiting her thick hair.
"Neopa has run away--back to our people," she said with a smile, as she
turned back into the tepee. "Tillie does not run away," she added as she
disappeared.
Moir sat down on a sledge and cursed Reivers steadily for five minutes,
but at every few words his eyes would stray back to the tepee which hid
Tillie.
"We'll go after her," said Reivers. "We'll bring her back."
"Go after her!" snorted Moir. "She has half a night's start on us.
She'll reach her people before we could get her. Do you think I want
half the country following my trail."
"I'll go after her alone then," insisted Reivers.
"Will you?" Moir's eyes narrowed to slits. "I think not. Let me tell
thee something, old son: he who goes this far on the home trail with
Shanty Moir goes all the way. Understand? You'll come with me or you'll
be wolf-meat out here on the snow. No; there'll be no following of that
kid. She's gone. The other one's here. There is no telling what tale the
kid will spin when she meets people, or who will be down here looking
for our trail. Therefore we are going to travel and travel quick. Have
the squaw get food in a hurry. Get your dogs together. We'll be on the
trail in half an hour."
Moir was masterful and dominant now. It was evident that he was more
worried over the possibility of some one hearing of his whereabouts
through Neopa than he was over the girl's escape. He gave Reivers a
second drink of liquor, since he seemed to need it to fully awaken him,
and set about making ready for the trail.
"Eat plenty," he commanded, when Tilly served the cold meat and tea.
"The next meal you have will be about sundown."
He tore down the tepee, packed the sledges and had the outfit ready for
the start in an amazingly short while.
"Now, old son," he said quietly, pointing to the rifle that lay
uncovered on top of his sledge, "do 'ee take good look at her. She's a
good old Betsy and I've knocked o'er smaller men than you at the half
mile. Do you keep well up with me on the trail I'll be making this day
and there'll be no trouble. Try any tricks and the wolves will have
whiskey-soaked meat to feed on. There's no turning back now. He who
comes this far with Shanty Moir goes all the way."
"You can't lose me, mister," stammered Reivers. "I want that money for
hooch for next Summer like you promised."
"Wilt get more than you bargained for, old son," laughed Moir. "Yes,
more than you ever dreamed of. Hi-yah! Buck! Bugle! Mush; mush up!"
Moir made no pretence at hiding his trail when he started this time.
Apparently he reasoned that the damage was done. If any one wished to
trail him after hearing Neopa's story they would have no trouble in
finding his tracks, despite any subterfuge he might attempt. He went
straight forward, as a man who has nothing to fear if he can but reach
his fastness, and Reivers' wonderment grew as the trail held straight
toward the rising sun.
The course was parallel to the one he had taken westward from
MacGregor's cabin to Tillie's encampment. If it held on as it was going
it would lead straight into the heart of the Dead Lands, and within half
a day's travel of the MacGregor home. Was it possible that the mine lay
in the Dead Lands? Duncan MacGregor made this territory his
trapping-ground. How could his brother's find have escaped his trained
outdoor eyes?
The next instant Reivers was cursing himself for a blind fool. There was
no trapping in the Dead Lands. There was no feed there. Except for a
stray wolf-cave, fur-bearing beasts would shun those barren rocks as a
desert, and Duncan MacGregor, being a knowing trapper, might trap around
it twenty years without venturing through after a first fruitless search
for signs.
The mine was in the Dead Lands, of course. It was as safely hidden there
as if within the bowels of the earth. And he, Reivers, had probably been
within shooting distance of it during his two days' wandering in that
district. The man whom he had killed with the rock had undoubtedly been
hurrying with Hattie MacGregor straight to his chief's fastness.
It was noon when the ragged ground on the horizonhead told Reivers that
his surmises were correct and that they were hurrying straight for the
Dead Lands. An hour of travel and the jagged formation of the rock
country was plainly distinguishable a little over a mile ahead. Then
Moir for the first time that day called a halt. When Reivers caught up
with him he saw that Moir held in each hand a small pouch-like
contrivance of buckskin, pierced near the middle with tiny holes and
equipped with draw-strings at the bottom.
"Come here, lass," he beckoned to Tillie. "Must hide that smiling mouth
of thine for the present."
With a laugh he threw the pouch over the squaw's head, pulled the bottom
tightly around her neck, and tied the strings securely.
"The same with thee, old son," he said, and treated Reivers in the same
summary manner. "You see, I do not wish to have to put you away," he
explained genially, "and that I would do if by chance thy eyes should
see the way to Shanty Moir's mine. One or two men have been unlucky
enough to see it. They will never be able to tell the tale." He
skilfully searched the pair for hidden weapons, but Reivers had expected
this and carried not so much as a knife. "All right. Keep in my steps,
old son. Presently thou'll get wet. Do not fear. Wilt not let 'ee come
to harm. Neither thee nor tuh squaw. I have use for you both. Come now;
I'll go slow."
The buckskin pouch pierced only by the tiny air-holes, masked Reivers'
eyes in a fashion that precluded any possible chance of sight. He knew
instinctively that Moir was turning. First the turn was to the left.
Then back to the right. Then in a circle, and after that straight ahead.
Presently the feel of a sharp rock underfoot told him that they had
entered the Dead Lands. He stumbled purposely to one side of the trail
and bumped squarely against a solid wall of stone. Next he tried it on
the opposite side with the same result. Moir was leading the way through
a narrow defile in the rocks.
Suddenly there came to Reivers' ears the sound of running water, the
lazy murmur of a small brook. Almost at the same instant came the splash
of Moir and his dogs going into the stream and Moir's laughing:
"Wilt get a little wet here, old son. But follow on."
Fumbling with his feet Reivers found the stream and stepped in. To his
surprise the water was warm. Warm water? Where had he seen warm water
recently in this country? His thoughts leaped back with a snap. There
was only one open stream to be found thereabouts, and that was the brook
that came from the warm springs by which he had camped on his way to
Tillie's.
"Warm water!" laughed Moir. "Wilt find all snug in my camp. Aye, as snug
as in a well-kept jail."
The stream was knee-deep, and by the pressure of the water against the
back of his legs Reivers knew that they were going down-stream.
Presently Moir spoke again.
"Now, if you value the tops of your heads, do you duck as low as you
can. Duck now, quick; and do you keep that position till I tell you to
straighten up."
Reivers and Tillie ducked obediently. Suddenly the tiny light that had
come through the air-holes of their masks was shut out. The darkness was
complete. Reivers thrust his hand above his bowed head and came in
contact with cold, clammy rock. No wonder it had taken MacGregor and
Moir two years to find the mine, since the way to it lay by a
subterranean river!
The light reappeared, but it was not the sunny light that had come
through the air-holes before they had entered the river tunnel. It was
grey and dead, as the light in a room where the sunshine does not enter.
"Now you can lift your heads," laughed Moir. "Come to the right. Up the
bank. Here we are."
He jerked Reivers out of the water roughly, and roughly pulled the sack
from his head. Reivers blinked as the light struck his eyes. Moir
treated him to a generous kick.
"Welcome," he hissed menacingly. "Welcome to the camp of Shanty Moir."