Chapter XXXVII: Into the Jaws of the Bear

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."