The odds of three to one against him, and Joey and Tammy armed with knives, he accepted as a matter of course. But a six-shooter in the hands of a man who could use one as Shanty Moir could was a shade too much even for him to venture against. The manner in which Moir had shot up the tin cup the morning before proved how alert and sure was his trigger-finger. To make the suspicion of a move toward him, with the gun in his hand, would have spelled instant ruin. As he watched now, Reivers saw that Moir was more vigilant than ever. He kept far away from the pit-mouth. The gun either was in his hand or hanging ready in the holster. And when Reivers saw the first load of sand he understood why. The pay-streak had paid out. They were winnowing the drippings of dust washed down from the pocket now, and this job soon would be done. Moir was not taking any chances of losing at this stage of affairs. The fortune was in his grasp; he would break camp and be off in the same hour that the sand began to run low-grade. He took no part in the work to-day. He merely stood and watched. And Reivers watched back, and the hours passed, and the short day began to draw to a close, and still not the slightest chance to rush Shanty Moir and live had presented itself. As the early twilight began to creep down into the cavern, the ugly grins with which Joey and Tammy regarded MacGregor began to increase. Suddenly Tammy, washing a pan of sand in the brook, threw up both hands. “Not a trace in the last load, Shanty!” he shouted. “All out!” came Moir’s bellow, as if he had been waiting for the signal. Joey and Tammy threw down their tools and came over and stood behind Reivers and MacGregor who came up dragging a loaded sledge behind them. “Take that load down yonder!” ordered Moir, pointing to the black tunnel into which the creek disappeared in leaving the cavern. Tammy and Joey followed, grinning, two paces behind the sledge. Moir, gun in hand, walked ten feet behind them. “Whoa!” he laughed when Reivers and MacGregor had drawn up against the cliff beside the stream’s exit. “You can unhitch tuh old jackass now, ma sons. Then over with it quick.” With a yelp Tammy and Joey tore loose MacGregor’s traces. They held him between them, and in his bound and weakened condition he was unable to struggle or turn around. Before Reivers could move they had hurled MacGregor into the deep water in the tunnel. He sank like a stone and the current sucked him in. “Good-by, MacGregor of the big boasts!” laughed Moir, but he laughed a trifle too soon. In the instant that the current bore MacGregor into the darkness of the tunnel his face bobbed up above the waters. He looked up, and looked straight into Reivers’s eyes. It was not a look of appeal; it was the same look that had been in the eyes of Hattie MacGregor the day when Reivers had left her cabin.