“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?”