"And the map?" questioned Jack.
"Oh, the map? Well, he didn't get that," answered Larry, in something of his natural voice. "You see, I had once an accident, breaking through the ice on the lake. The map got wet and was almost destroyed, so I copied it out on cotton with marking ink, and sewed it inside the lining of my coat, and it did not crackle, as the paper map would have done had he passed his hands over it. Why, he never suspected it was there."
Jack drew a great breath of relief. "I wouldn't care if he did get it,
Larry, so long as he left you alive."
"Oh, he's too cowardly to kill a man outright; don't be afraid of that.
But he's after the King's Coin, all right," was the reply.
"And he don't get King's Coin, not while I live—me," said the low voice of Fox-Foot, as, with squared shoulders and set teeth, he gripped his paddle firmly and started up the long stretch of Ten-mile Lake.
* * * * * * * *
All that night Larry and Jack slept in the canoe, while the Chippewa boy paddled noiselessly, mile after mile. Above them the loons laughed, and herons called, and in the dense forest ashore foxes barked and owls hooted. A beautiful bow of light arched itself in the north, its long, silvery fingers stretching and darting up to the sky's zenith. But the Indian paddled on. Those wild sounds and scenes were his birthright, and he knew no fear of them.
At daylight he beached the canoe so motionlessly the sleepers never stirred, and he wakened them only when he had the coffee made and a huge pan of delicious bacon fried above the coals. Both of the paleface friends then arose, yawned, stretched, stripped and plunged into the lake, to swim about for a few moments, and then to jump into their shirts and sweaters, and fall upon the coffee and bacon with fine relish.
"I believe," said Jack, devouring his third helping, "that my eyes are better. They don't ache or smart in the least to-day."
"Eye bad?" asked Fox-Foot.