IV

And all night long they slept the hours peacefully away, the strong,

athletic, well-knit, muscular white boy, the slender, agile, adroit

Indian side by side, their firm young cheeks pillowed on thousands and

thousands of dollars' worth of yellow gold.

With the first hint of dawn, Fox-Foot was astir. Before he left the

tent, however, he cautiously placed his sack under Larry's blanket, and

within the turn of that gentleman's elbow. Once more good luck attended

his efforts with rod and line, and he got a dozen trout in almost as

many minutes. Larry's nose usually awakened him when it sniffed early

cooking, so now he rolled over to pummel Jack, then up to sing and

whistle through his morning toilet like a schoolboy. Breakfast over,

they struck camp, Fox-Foot taking command in packing the canoe, giving

most rigid instructions as to saving the sacks should there be an upset.

Larry took one long, last look at the wild surroundings. The dense pine

forest, the forbidding rocks, the silver upper reaches of the river

where his fought-for treasure had lain hidden for two years from all

human eyes, unknown to any living man save himself. Then the canoe swung

into midstream for the return voyage, its narrow little bow facing the

south at last.

For many days the taut little craft danced merrily, homeward bound. For

many nights the three voyageurs camped, slept, and dreamed, with only

the laughing loons, the calling herons, the plaintive owls, and distant

fox bark to sweep across their slumbers. But as the days went on, the

Indian boy grew more wary; his glance seemed keener, his ears forever

on the alert; he appeared like a lithe, silent watchdog, holding itself

ready to spring, and snap, and bury its fine white teeth in the throat

of an enemy to its household. His paddle dipped noiselessly, his head

turned rapidly, his eye narrowed dangerously. Larry and Jack saw it all,

but they said nothing, only relieved the Chippewa of all the work they

possibly could, so that, should necessity demand that Fox-Foot must lose

rest and food, he would be well fortified for every tax placed upon

him. Jack took to cooking the meals, as a wild duck takes to the water,

insisting that Fox-Foot rest after paddling, and the Indian accepting

it all without comment, and sleeping at a moment's notice--seemingly

storing it up against future needs. But the evening came when the

laughing river gurgled into Lake Nameless, and that night they camped

below its frowning shores on a narrow strip of beach, where the

driftwood of many years and many storms had stranded, seemingly forever.

All three had rolled into blankets, with sleep hovering above and about

them, when, noiselessly as the dawn, Fox-Foot slipped from his bed like

an eel, dipped under the tent, and was gone.

"Larry," whispered Jack, fearfully.

"Yes, boy?" came the reply.

"Did you see that?"

"Yes, boy."

"But--Larry, oh, it's horrible! I hate myself for saying it--but, oh,

Larry, he's taken a sack with him. I saw it."

"Yes, boy."

"Listen! Oh, Larry, s-s-h--"

Matt Larson turned on his back, every nerve strung to snapping pitch.

Two whispering voices assailed his ears. The horror of them seemed to

grip his heart and stop its very beating. Fox-Foot was speaking.

"You's not a good man. I hate you. You's bad all over, but I _have_ to

trust you. You got me cornered. Here's the gold, same's I promised. You

take half. I take half. _You hide it_. Bime-by when I get _them_ out

of this, I come back, _then_ we divide. But you sure _hide it now, hide

it. Good. GOOD_."

Then came the reply in English, good English. There was only one voice

in all the world that had that hissing, snaky sound, and Larry knew it

to his cost. It was the voice of the man in the mackinaw, and it was

hissing:

"Bet your life I'll hide it, Fox-Foot, and you're a good, decent Indian

boy. You shall have half, _sure_, but get both of those _dogs_ out of

here. Get 'em away, right off."

"I scairt," replied the Indian, "I clean scairt. When he finds out,

maybe he kill me. I got no knife, no gun--nothing. I scairt."

"Here, take my revolver," replied the man. "And I tell you, Fox-Foot,

if they kick up, you put a bullet clean through them, _both_ of them."

"Sure. Give me it," said the Indian in a soft, oily voice. Then, "Now,

now, I feel safer with _that_ inside my shirt."

Matt Larson's face was white as a sheet. He did not care a dollar

for his lost gold, but for this Indian boy to fail him--oh, it was

heartbreaking! He buried his face in his hands. "Oh, Foxy!" he almost

sobbed. "Foxy, my little Chippewa friend, I have tried _so_ hard to

treat you square--and--Foxy, you've failed me! You've failed me." And

big, burly Jack Cornwall's tear-wet face was lying against Larry's hand,

and poor, big, burly Jack Cornwall's voice was catching in his throat

as he said:

"Oh, Fox-Foot! Fox-Foot! I'd rather have died than heard this--this

from _you_!"

Then came a hurried good-bye between the two creatures outside, and

Fox-Foot slipped back into the tent, slipped back noiselessly, snakily

as an eel in its own slime.

For a full hour Larry and Jack lay there in the dark, hand gripping

hand. One sack of gold had gone, stolen by their trusted friend, who

lay near them, a loaded revolver inside his shirt, and a threat on his

lips--a threat to kill them both.

At the end of the hour the Indian arose, struck a match, lighted a bit

of candle, and taking the revolver from his shirt, examined it closely.

Through narrowed lids Larry could see by even that faint light that it

was fully loaded.

With a sweet, almost motherly movement, Matt Larson curled his arm

around the boy at his side. They at least would face death together. But

the Indian was crawling slowly, silently up towards them, closer,

closer. At last the slim, brown fingers touched Larry's shoulder, and

the soft Chippewa voice whispered:

"Larry, Jack, wake! See, see, the great thing I got. I got _his_

revolver. He never harm us now."

Larry sat bolt upright.

"What do you mean, Foxy? What do you mean, I say? What have you done

_with my gold_?"

"Gold? Your gold?" exclaimed the Indian boy in surprise. "Your gold?

Why, she's all here"; and flinging back his cover blanket he displayed

a gorgeous sight. There, in a thick, deep layer, piled on his under

blanket, lay every single, blessed nugget belonging to the one sack he

had slept on.

"But," stammered Larry, his eyes popping out of his head in amazement,

"but, Foxy, I _heard_ you bargain with him, I _heard_ you give him the

sack of gold."

"No," replied the Indian, smiling; "heard me give him the _sack_, the

sack filled with stones and pebbles, _not_ with gold. But I've got his

gun, got it _here, here_ in my shirt. He is now unarmed. _He can't shoot

you now_!"

Matt Larson held out his arms. "Oh, Foxy, Foxy, forgive me, forgive me!

For the moment I mistrusted you, I doubted you, my boy."

"I love you just same as ever; no difference if you did suspect, I no

change," said the Indian, as Larry's splendid arms closed about his

lithe young shoulders.

Then Jack Cornwall's voice found utterance. "Fox-Foot! Oh, Fox-Foot!"

was all he could say, but the Indian boy laid his slim finger across

Jack's honest, boyish lips, saying:

"I know. Indian he always know. I love you just same as if you never

doubt."

And Jack knew that Fox-Foot spoke the truth.

"But we must go, go at once," continued the Chippewa. "He maybe come

back, if he find I cheat him. I bad fellow--me. Long ago, before you

come on train, I think maybe he follow us, maybe steal your gold, so

I find him, I speak to him with two tongues, one false tongue, one

straight tongue. I bargain with him to come to Lake Nameless. I meet him

here. We divide your gold, he and I. All the time I make bargain with

him I have plan in my heart, just trick to get all his revolver from

him, so he can't shoot you, Larry. I know he shoot you if I don't get

that gun from him. So--I do all this to-night. I play my trick on him.

We save our gold, we save our lives, maybe. So--you understand now? I

bad fellow, me, but I am only bad to bad man like him. You understand

now? You?"

"Understand?" cried Larry, leaping to his feet. "Understand? Why, Foxy,

you're a prince! You're a king! You're the best boy that ever drew the

breath of life. You are--"

"Don't stop now to tell me what I am," laughed Fox-Foot. "It is enough

that I am your friend, Jack's friend, and the man may be back with his

sack of pebbles." Here the Indian sat down in a fit of irresistible

laughter. Then, controlling himself, he continued, "We must be away

inside ten minutes--quick!"

The other two had long ago grasped the entire situation, and in a

twinkling camp was struck, and they were heading for the far shore,

Larry paddling bow, the Indian astern, and both working for dear life.

Before daybreak they had reached the outlet of the lake, and, wearied as

they were with excitement, haste and continuous paddling, Larry still

urged that they proceed. But the Indian would not listen to it. Larry

and Jack must sleep, he insisted, or none of them would be fit to face

the man should he follow, which he undoubtedly would, as soon as he

discovered the trick which had been played on him. So the two palefaces

once more rolled in their blankets, not waiting to pitch the tent, and

the Indian crouched forward near the water's edge to watch, watch,

watch, with sleepless, peering eyes, that nothing, living or dead, could

hope to escape.

V

Jack found sleep impossible. "I feel myself such a cad," he began to

Larry, "such a sneak ever to have doubted our Fox-Foot; but oh, Larry,

things did look so against him."

"They certainly did, son," assented Matt Larson, "and I feel just as

caddish as you do--more so, in fact, for I should have known, and you

were not expected to. From now on, Jack, let's you and I make it a life

rule, no matter how much things look against any chap, not to believe

it of him, but just believe the best and the noblest of everybody."

"My hand on it!" came Jack's reply, and once more those two fell fast

asleep, palm to palm, but with a vastly different emotion from the one

they had felt a few hours before.

"He will try once more," said Fox-Foot, as they swallowed a hurried

breakfast. "He not quite give up yet. At the head of that first big

rapid--you know where we portaged over Red Rock Falls--there's short cut

through woods to Lake Nameless. Maybe he catch us there. We there about

to-morrow noon. But he can't shoot; his gun here." And the boy tapped

his shirt with an air of confidence.

"Yes, thanks to your stratagem, you young schemer," said Larry. "What do

you think, Jack? Are you equal to a good tussle with his mackinaw nibs?"

"I'm not only equal, but aching to get at him," responded the boy, with

spirit. "I'd give him enough to battle against."

But the man in the mackinaw had to battle against a far more formidable

enemy than this little crew of three venturesome stalwarts.

For the next twenty-four hours things went on much as usual, then came

the sweeping bend in the river, and the roar of the distant falls. This

meant to put ashore and to portage the canoe, duffle, guns and gold

bags around to the foot of the falls, for no canoe could possibly

live through such a cataract, and there was no record, even among the

Indians, of anyone ever having "run" it. All the morning Jack had

paddled bow, and worked like a nailer, so the other two lifted the canoe

to their shoulders, scrambling up the steep, rocky shores, and leaving

Jack to bear the lighter burdens of blankets, tin kettles and one

gold-sack.

Following their prearranged plan, Jack left the sack beside the water

where he could keep a constant eye on it, while he made several trips up

the heights, leaving his various packs on the summit only to return for

more. Last of all he shouldered the heavy gold sack, stumbling among the

rocks under its weight. As he reached the shore heights he noticed his

comrades had already been swallowed up in the woods, canoe and all, but

he could hear their voices and their feet crunching through the

underbrush.

"Hi, boys, you're doing well!" he called gayly after them, when suddenly

a dark circle seemed to wheel about his head, drop over his shoulders,

then grip him around the arms. Instantly he felt the rope tighten.

Someone had thrown a noose--lassoed him as they lasso cattle on the

prairies. In another second he was thrown flat on his back, the gold

sack was jerked from his fingers by the concussion, and a dark, evil

face was leaning above his own. The man in the mackinaw had caught him

at last!

Oddly enough in that tense moment he seemed to hear his father's voice

saying to him, "Why, boy, you're built like an ox!" The memory was like

a match to tinder. He flung his hard young legs about the man's ankles,

bringing him down like a dead weight upon his own body. With the wind

half crushed out of him, he struggled and rolled to protect his

revolver. A dozen times the man snatched, plunged and parried to secure

it, and as many times Jack rolled on top of it, keeping it securely in

his hip pocket. Not a word was spoken, not a sound uttered. Only those

two, the evil, avaricious, brutal man, and the fair, weak-eyed, brave

boy, battling, rolling, lunging, each for the mastery. Then something

caused the rope to give, the knot slipped, and with a mighty effort Jack

wrenched one arm loose, felt for his revolver, drew it, and fired, once,

twice, not at his enemy, but straight into the air.

"No, you don't!" snarled the man, reaching for Jack's gun with one hand,

and his throat with the other. But with the agility of a cat the boy had

thrown the gun directly behind him, where it fell clear of the bank and

splashed into the river. The sound fell on Jack's ears like a death

knell. He had not thought they were so near the brink. One more struggle

and they would both be over. Then his breath left him, squeezed out by

the demon hand clutching at his throat.

But those two shots had told their story. With almost stunning horror

Larry and Fox-Foot heard them.

"He's got him! He's got Jack!" gasped the Indian, dropping the canoe,

and turning with the fleetness of a deer, he disappeared up the portage.

Spitting out the strange foreign word he only used in extreme moments,

Larry followed hard on his heels.

"He's got him down! He's choking him!" drifted back the Indian's voice,

shaking with dismay and rage. Then both would-be rescuers stood stock

still, awed by the sight before them. Jack had once again clutched his

sturdy legs about the man's knees, twisting him so that the iron fingers

relaxed from their grip at the boy's throat. The man was now clutching

the gold sack, but with a springy, rapid turn Jack wrenched it free. The

two rolled over and over, for a short, sharp struggle, and Larry and the

Indian appeared only in time to see the two shoot over the bank. Nothing

remained in sight but a single hand clinging to a cedar root that

projected from the rocks. It was the work of an instant to reach the

hand--Jack's hand, fortunately--to lift him from his perilous position,

while all but breathless he gasped, "Save him! save him! He's in the

river! He'll go over the falls!"

Then their horrified eyes discovered the man, by this time far out in

midstream, drifting more surely, more rapidly every second, towards the

rapids.

"Here, take this rope! Save him!" cried the boy, wrenching from his poor

bruised sides the very rope his enemy had secured him with.

Larry snatched it, crashing down the shore in the vain hope of reaching

the drifting body. The canoe was up in the woods where they had dropped

it at the sound of Jack's gunshots. He could not begin to get near

enough with that twenty-foot rope. There was but one hope left--a huge

overhanging pine tree a little above the falls--perhaps he could help

the struggling man from its branches. But before he could even reach the

tree, let alone crawl out above the river, the dark, drifting mass, with

its struggling arms and white face, had already been sucked far past

its furthest branches. Beside Jack, whose straining eyes watched for

the inevitable end, stood Fox-Foot, his arms folded tightly across his

chest, his gaze riveted on the drifting speck. Then both boys shuddered,

for the swirling speck seemed suddenly to stand erect, then plunged feet

foremost over the brink.

Larry returned very slowly, his legs lagging heavily at every step. All

day they searched in the river far below the falls, but not a trace

could be found of the man in the mackinaw.

"Is there a particle of chance that the poor fellow _could_ escape

death?" asked Larry of Fox-Foot that night, when, wearied and thoroughly

played out, they pitched their camp for the last night in the forest.

"Yes; one chance in fifty. My father he knows two men escape long

time ago."

"It strikes me," said Larry, grimly, "that if there is a ghost of a

chance he'll get it."

"I hope so," declared Jack, fervently. "My neck will be purple from his

claws for some time yet, but, oh! I _hope_ he escaped."

"Yes," echoed Larry, solemnly, "it would be miserable to think that

I had secured this gold at the price of a man's life, no matter how

degraded that man may be. No, I would not want the gold at that price."

So with this shadow surrounding them, their last day in the wilds was

very quiet, and, when at last they paddled into the little settlement,

it was with a sigh of both regret and relief that Matt Larson lifted

his gold sacks from the canoe.

The Hudson's Bay trader greeted them cordially. "Got any furs for me,

Larry?" was the first thing he asked.

Then Matt Larson threw back his head and laughed heartily for the first

time in days. He had forgotten all about that old tale that he was going

north for "furs." So now he related all his story, showing his gold to

the bluff, old, honest trader.

"You're lucky to get it to the front," said that person. "There's been

one of our notorious Northern 'bad men' up in the bush for weeks. If

you'd come across him now, you would never have got those nuggets here

safely. But you're all right from now on. He drifted in here to-day and

took the noon train west."

All three adventurers sprang to their feet.

"_What_!" yelled Larry. "Came here _to-day_! What did he look like?"

"Looked more like mincemeat than any human being I ever saw," replied

the trader. "Tall, dark, evil-looking man. Wore a mackinaw, was wringing

wet to the skin, had one arm in a sling made of a wild grapevine, face

slit up in ribbons as if he'd been fighting bears, limped as if he had

stringhalt. Said he was going to the hospital at Port Arthur."

Larry's reply was an odd one. He turned abruptly to Fox-Foot. "Boy," he

said, "you're coming East with us to-night. Right now! Don't say 'no,'

for I tell you you're coming. After the tricks you played on that

villain your life would not be worth the smallest nugget in those sacks

if you stayed here. We'll come back after a time, but you are coming

with me, _now_!"

Jack Cornwall found he could not speak a word, but just held out both

hands to the Chippewa. And that night as the three sat together in the

cozy sleeper, while the train thundered its way eastward, Jack wondered

why he was so wonderfully happy. Was it because he had proved himself a

man on this strange, wild journey? Was it because of those heavy sacks

beside him, filled with the King's Coin, which Larry declared he was to

share? He could hardly define the reason, until, glancing up suddenly,

he found himself looking into a pair of dark eyes of very rare beauty.

Then he knew that this strangely happy feeling came from the simple fact

that there were to be no "good-byes," that Fox-Foot was still beside

him.