Under Reivers’ sharp orders—given in a way that would have startled Moir
had he heard—Tillie and Neopa hurriedly packed the dog-sledges with
their belongings, harnessed the dogs and hooked them to the traces.
“Oh, Snow-Burner,” said Neopa timidly, “do we go back to Nawa?”
“In good time,” said Reivers. “For the present, you have only to obey my
wishes. Get on the first sledge.”
With bowed head the girl took the place directed, and Reivers turned to
find Tillie smiling craftily at his elbow.
“Snow-Burner,” she said softly, “this is the man, Iron Hair, who digs
the gold which you want. We go to rob him. I understand. You play at
drinking to fool Iron Hair. It is well. Tillie will help the
Snow-Burner. We will kill Iron Hair and take his gold. Then the
Snow-Burner will come with Tillie to her tepee?”
Reivers looked at her, and for the first time he felt a revulsion
against the base part he was playing. Would he return with Tillie to her
tepee when this affair was over? Would he go on with his old way of
living, the base part of him triumphant over the better self? The
strange questions rapped like trip-hammers on Reivers’ conscience.
“Get on the sledge!” he growled, choked with anger.
She did not stir. He struck her cruelly. Tillie smiled. That was like
the Snow-Burner of old; and she waddled to her appointed place without
further question.
Up the gulch from Raftery’s came Moir quietly leading his dogs, the
sledge well loaded with cases of liquor.
“Wilt have a kiss first of all,” he laughed excitedly, and catching
Neopa in his arms tossed her in the air, kissed her loudly on her
averted cheeks and set her back on the sledge. “Now, old son, follow and
follow quietly. When Iron Hair travels he wants no Fifty Mile gang on
his trail. Say nothing, but keep me in sight. Heyah, mush, mush!”
Out of the gully he led the way swiftly and silently to the open country
beyond the settlement. There he circled in a confusing way, bearing
northward. After an hour he began circling again, doubling on his trail
to make it hard for any one to follow, but finally Reivers knew by the
stars that the course lay to the south. Another series of false twists
in the trail, then Moir struck out in determined fashion on a straight
course, east and a trifle south from Fifty Mile.
Reivers, silently guiding his dogs in the tracks made by Moir, breathed
hard as he read the stars. By the pace that Moir was setting it seemed
certain that he now was making for his camp in a direct line. But if so,
if this trail were held, it would take them back toward the Dead Lands,
straight into the country that was Duncan MacGregor’s trapping-ground.
Could the mine be in that region. If so, how could it have escaped the
notice of the old trapper?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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