CHAPTER VIII.
JOHN CARIBOU PROVES HIMSELF.
What of John Caribou, fleeing through the woods in that mysterious manner?
When the guide left the camp, declaring that he must go for some tobacco, the statement was only an excuse, as Diamond supposed. Caribou had tobacco, plenty of it; but he was determined to get out of the camp, and that was the first thing that came into his mind to give as a reason for his contemplated action.
He was sure he knew whose gun had hurled that heavy bullet crashing through the head of the moose and he was resolved to see that person.
The slayer of the moose was also the slayer of the deer and the committer of the other violations of the game laws of Maine, of which Merriwell’s party had seen so many proofs since coming to Lily Bay.
When the hoot of the owl came, the first night the party was in camp on the island, Caribou had recognized it as an old familiar call. The man who had given that imitation of an owl’s hoot had slipped up to the camp later to have a talk with Caribou, and had been frightened away by Diamond. Later still, Diamond had seen him talking to Caribou, though they were so far away that Diamond could not tell much about the man’s appearance.
That man was a half-breed, known as Penobscot Tom, and he was John Caribou’s half-brother; who, though in color a shade lighter than Caribou, so resembled the well-known guide that he often had been mistaken for him. It was this man who had been seen to shoot at a deer, a misdemeanor which, it will be remembered, was charged against the guide by Parker, the game warden.
Penobscot Tom was a very different man from John Caribou. He was a restless, roving vagabond, a thief and a jail bird, a violater of every law he did not choose to keep. The white blood in his veins was all bad, or at least it had made him all bad.