He continued to hold the gun in his hand and motioned to the sledge near the thawing-pan. High side-boards had been placed on the sledge, making it capable of holding twice its former load, and a looped rope supplemented the traces to which MacGregor was so ignominiously hitched.
“Take hold of the rope, old son,” directed Moir.
He did not approach as MacGregor resignedly led the way to the sledge. Tammy turned from his thawing-pan to hitch the Scotchman to his traces and to strap down his hands. Moir stood back, the gun in his hand, dominating all three.
“Now into tuh pit; Joey’s got a load waiting,” he commanded. “And one whine out of you, old ox, and you get the prod. Hi-jah! Giddap!”
CHAPTER XLII—THE SNOW-BURNER WORKS FOR TWO
With MacGregor leading the way, Reivers humbly picked up his rope and helped drag the sledge into the mine. The tunnel, high and broad enough only for two men to crawl abreast, ran at a steep slant into the sand for probably twenty-five feet. At its end it spread into a small room in which Joey was at work, chopping loose chunks of frozen earth.
One glance around and Reivers knew from experience that this room had been the home of the pocket, and that, unless the signs lied, the pocket soon would be worked out. Judging by the extent of the excavation the pocket had been a good-sized one, and the amount of dust and nuggets taken from it undoubtedly would foot up to a neat sum. Yes, it would be a tidy fortune. It would be plenty to give him a new start in life, plenty to pay him for the trouble he had gone to, plenty even to pay him for the baseness of his present position.
He obeyed Joey meekly when ordered, with curses and insults, to load the sledge. He could have throttled Joey down there in the mine without a sound coming up to warn those above of what was happening, but Moir’s conduct of the morning had made an impression upon Reivers. A man who kept himself out of reach, who kept his six-shooter pointed at you all the time, and who could shoot tin cups out of your moving hand, was not a man to be despised.
The first hour of work that day convinced Moir and his henchmen that their original unflattering estimate of Reivers was correct. Even a close observer, regarding him during that period of probation, would have seen nothing to indicate that he was anything but what Shanty Moir had judged him to be. A miserable, broken-down squaw-man, without a will of his own, and only one ambition—to clamour for as much liquor as possible—that was the character that Reivers played perfectly for the benefit of Moir and his two men.
At first, they kept an eye on him, watching to see if by any chance the old fool might be dangerous. They discovered that he would be dangerous if turned loose—to their supply of liquor. Beyond that he had, apparently, not a single aim in the world. His physical weakness, they soon discovered, was exactly what was to be expected of a whisky bloat. He was able to help haul the sledge-loads of frozen earth up the incline of the shaft, and that was all. Even that left him puffing and trembling.