“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.”