“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.