Chapter XLV: A Surprise for Shanty Moir

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."