Reivers caught hold of a spear of rock the instant his head came out of
water, and held on. He did not try to think or understand at first.
Sufficient to know that he was alive and to pump his lungs full of the
air they were crying for. He held MacGregor under his left arm, and he
rather wondered that he hadn't let him go in that moment when he went
under. MacGregor was beginning to revive, too. Reivers looked around.
There was not much to see. They were in a tiny opening in the rocks, a
yard or two in length. It was a duplicate of Moir's cavern on a
miniature scale, except that here the rock walls were not high or
impossible to climb. For this space the brook showed itself once more to
the sun, then vanished again under the cliffs.
"Is it Heaven?" gasped MacGregor, only half conscious.
"Nearer hell," laughed Reivers.
He lifted himself and his burden out of the water to a resting-place on
a shelf of rock. For a minute or two he sat looking up at the rock walls
and the grey sky above them. He looked down at the water, at the spot
where they had been spewed from death back into life. And then he leaped
upright and laughed, laughed so that the rocks rang with it, laughed so
that MacGregor's senses cleared and he looked at his saviour in
consternation. His laughter was the uncontrollable, heart-free laughter
of the man who suddenly sees a great joke upon his enemy.
He smote MacGregor between the shoulder-blades so he gasped and coughed.
He tore the straps and harness from his arms, body and legs, tossed him
up in the air, shook him and set him down on the rock.
"I've got him!" he said at last. "Oh, Shanty Moir, what a surprise you
have coming to your own black self!"
MacGregor, with his senses cleared enough to realise that he was alive,
and to remember how the miracle had come about, said quietly--
"Man, that was the bravest thing I ever saw a man do."
"What?"
"Diving into that hole after me."
"Oh, to ---- with that! That's past. The past doesn't count--not when the
very immediate future is so full of juice and interest as happens to be
the case just now. I've got Shanty Moir, old-timer. Do you understand?
He's mine and all that he's got is mine, and he's going to be surprised.
Oh, how surprised he's going to be!"
MacGregor looked down at the two yards of rushing water, up at the rock
walls and then at the jubilant Reivers.
"I dinna see it," he said dryly.
"Really?" Reivers suddenly became interested in him as if he presented a
rare mental problem. "Can't you make that simple mind of yours work out
the simple solution of this problem?"
MacGregor shook his head.
"What I see is this: we're alive, and that only for the present. We're
in a little hole in the Dead Lands. Happen we climb out of the hole, we
have no dogs, food, or weapons. The nearest camp is two good days'
mushing, with good fresh dogs. Too far. If I could manage to stagger
five miles I'd surprise myself. There is not so much as a dry match on
us. No, I maun say, lad, my simple mind does not see the solution of the
problem."
"Try again, Mac," urged Reivers. "Make your mind work. What do we need
to make our condition blessed among men; what do men need to be
well-fitted on the Winter trail? You can make your mind do that sum,
can't you?"
"We need," replied MacGregor doggedly, "dogs, and food, and fire, and
weapons."
"Correct. And now what's the next thought that your grey matter produces
after that masterpiece?"
"That the nearest place where we may obtain these things is too far away
for us to make, unless happen we meet some one on the trail, which is
not likely."
"Pessimism!" laughed Reivers. "Too much caution stunts the possibility
of the mind. Interesting demonstration of the fact, with your mind as an
example." He turned and smote with the flat of his hand the stone wall
from under which they had just emerged. "What's the other side of those
rocks, Mac?"
"Shanty Moir and his six-shooter."
"And dogs, and food, and matches, and cartridges, and gold, everything,
everything to make us kings of the country, Mac! And they're ours--ours
as surely as if we had 'em in our hands now."
"I dinna see it," said MacGregor.
"Pessimism again. How can Moir and his gang get out of their camp?"
"Up-stream, by the creek, of course."
"Any other way?"
"There's the way we came--but they do not know that."
"Correct, and when we've plugged up that single exit they can't get away
from us, Mac, and then we've got 'em!"
MacGregor's eyes lighted up, then he grew dour again.
"We have got 'em, if we plug up the river, I see," he admitted, "but
when we have got them, what good does it do us? What are you going to
do, then?"
"That's the surprise, Mac; I won't tell even you." He looked swiftly for
a way up the rock walls and found one. "The first question is: Do you
think you can climb after me up that crevice there?"
"I could climb through hell and back again if it would help in getting
Shanty Moir."
"All right. I can't quite give you hell, but I'll give Shanty Moir an
imitation of it before he's much older. Come on. We've got some work to
do before it gets dark."
He led the way into the crevice he had marked for the climb up from the
hole and boosted MacGregor up before him. It was slow, hard work, but
MacGregor's weak hold slipped often, and he came slipping down upon
Reivers' shoulders. In the end Reivers impatiently pulled him down, took
him on his back and crawled up, and with a laugh rolled himself and his
burden in the snow on top of the cliffs. A few rods away smoke was
rising through the opening above Moir's camp, and at the sight of it
MacGregor's numbed faculties came to life.
"Lemme go, man!" he pleaded as Reivers caught him as he staggered toward
the opening. "It's my chance, man. I can kill the cur with a rock from
up here."
"Save your strength; I've got use for it," said Reivers. "Can you walk?
All right. Come on, then, and don't try to get near that gap."
Taking MacGregor by the hand he led the way carefully around the big
opening till they came to the opposite side of the mass of rocks, where
the creek entered the tunnel by which Moir reached his camp. Crawling
and slipping, they made their way down until they stood beside the bed
of the stream.
"Now to work, Mac," said Reivers, and seizing a rock bore it to the
tunnel's mouth and dropped it into the water.
"Aye, aye!" chuckled MacGregor, as he understood the significance of
this move. "We'll wall the curs in."
For half an hour they laboured. Reivers carried and rolled the heaviest
rocks he could move into position across the tunnel, and MacGregor
staggered beneath smaller pieces to fill up the chinks. When their work
was finished there was a rock wall across the mouth of the tunnel which
it would have been almost impossible to tear down, especially from the
inside.
It was growing dark when the task was completed, and Reivers nodded in
great satisfaction.
"That'll hold 'em long enough for my purpose, and we just made it in
time," he said. "Now come on up the mountain again, and then for the
surprise."
"The surprise, man?" panted MacGregor as he toiled up the rocks. "What
are you going to do? Tell me what's in your head?"
"Hush, hush!" laughed Reivers, pulling him up to the top. "Your position
is that of the onlooker. It would spoil it for you if you knew what was
going to happen."
"An onlooker--me--when it's a case of getting Shanty Moir? Don't say that,
lad. Don't leave me out. He's mine. You know that by all the rights of
men and gods it's my right to get him. Give me my just share of
revenge."
"Shut up!"
They were nearing the brink of the opening. Reivers' hand covered
MacGregor's mouth as they leaned over and looked down upon the
unsuspecting men in the cavern below.
In the shut-in spot night had fallen. On the sand before the dugout
Tillie was cooking over a brisk fire, going about her work as calmly as
if nothing of moment had happened during the afternoon. Near by, Moir
and Joey were packing the dog-sledge and repairing harness, evidently
preparing to take the trail after the evening meal. Tammy sat by the
fire, holding together with both hands the pieces of his nose which
Reivers' blow had smashed flat on his face.
Reivers scarcely looked at the men, but began to scan the walls for a
way to get down. The walls slanted inwardly from the top, and at first
it seemed impossible that a man could get safely into the cavern without
the aid of a rope. But presently Reivers saw that for thirty feet
directly above the large dugout the rocks were ragged enough to afford
plenty of holds for hands and feet.
The walls were nearly fifty feet high. If he could reach to the bottom
of this rough space he would be hanging with his feet, ten or twelve
feet above the cavern floor.
"Good enough," he said aloud. "It's a cinch."
"A cinch it is," breathed MacGregor softly. "We'll roll up a pile of
rocks and kill 'em like rats in a pit. But you maun leave Shanty to me,
lad, I----"
"Shut up!" Reivers thrust the Scotchman back from the brink. "Do you
want me to go after the harness for you? I told you that your job was to
be the onlooker. I settle this thing with Shanty Moir myself."
"But man----"
"Moir kicked me. Do you understand? He placed his dirty foot on me. Do
you see why I'm going to do it by myself?"
"Placed his foot on you? God's blood! What has he done to me--robbed me,
made an animal of me, stabbed me with a prod! Who has the better right
to his foul life?"
"It isn't a case of right, but of might, Mac," chuckled Reivers. "I've
got the better might. Therefore, will you give me your word that you'll
refrain from interfering with my actions until I've paid my debt to Mr.
Moir, or must I go back after the harness and strap you up?"
"Cruel----"
"Promise!"
"I promise," said MacGregor. "But it's wrong, sore wrong. I protest."
"All right. Protest all you want to, but do it silently. Not another
word or sound out of you now until the job's done."
Together they crawled back to the brink above the large dugout and
peered down into the darkening cavern. In a flash Reivers had his
mackinaw and boots off. The cooking-fire was deserted. No one was in
sight. Moir and his men and Tillie were at supper in the dugout, and
Reivers's chance had come. He swung himself silently over the brink and
hung by a handhold on the rock.
"Don't interfere, Mac," he said warningly. "Not till I've paid Shanty
Moir for the touch of his foot."