He could do this with impunity now, for Tom could not desert him with any hope of finding his way back to civilization; nor could he resist his partner’s tyranny without bringing upon himself certain and speedy punishment. There was a wicked gleam in the wolfer’s eye sometimes that fairly made Tom tremble.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LISH DECIDES TO MOVE.
The wolfer had brought Tom to the hills with him for a purpose. He intended to make him do all the drudgery of the camp, and to increase his own profits in the spring by stealing the skins the boy might find time to capture.
But Tom was not long in discovering that his catch was not likely to be very large. He was expected to cook all the meals and cut all the wood for the fire.
As their larder was not very well supplied, the cooking did not amount to much, but the chopping did.
Being more accustomed to handling a pen than he was to swinging an axe, he made very slow progress with this part of his work, and by the time it was done there were but a few hours of daylight left.
Still he did manage to take a few pelts, and it seemed to him that he ought to have taken more, for some of his baits were always missing, and on following up the trail that led from them, he not unfrequently found the carcasses of the wolves that had eaten the baits—minus the skins.
Lish was systematically robbing him. Knowing where the boy put out his baits, he visited them early every morning, taking as many skins as he thought he could without exciting his companion’s suspicion, and then going off to hunt up his own.
“He’ll never know the difference,” Lish often said to himself, “an’ I don’t reckon it makes any odds to me if he does, fur if he opens his yawp I’ll wear a hickory out over his back. The spelter’ll all be mine some day, anyhow. I aint a-goin’ to show him the way to this nice wolf ground an’ give him grub an’ pizen fur nothin’, I bet you!”
“This is some more of my honest partner’s work,” Tom would say when he found the body of a wolf from which the skin had been removed. “It beats the world what miserable luck I do have! I can’t make a cent, either honestly or dishonestly. Oscar knew what he was talking about when he said that Lish intended to rob me. Why didn’t I go up to the fort to see him, as he wanted me to do, instead of making myself unhappy over his good luck? If he were only here now how quickly I’d bundle up my share of the skins and find my way to his camp!”