He produced a quarter from a pocket, flipped it into the air off a thumb-nail, caught it in his right hand and slapped his left over it.
“Heads I get Andy’s medicine first, tails I don’t,” he said.
The coin lay tails up in his palm.
“That’s too darned bad!” he exclaimed. “Poor Andy!”
“You talkin’ ’bout Andy Mace hey?” asked a voice from the brush on his right.
Young Dan turned and beheld a stranger standing within five yards of him and regarding him intently with one eye. It was this matter of the one eye that made the first and sharpest impression on the youth. The stranger’s left eye was covered by a patch of black cloth. In addition to these interesting facts, Young Dan saw that he was an Indian and past middle-age, that he wore snowshoes and carried a pack and a rifle in a blanket case, and that no smoke issued from his lips or from the bowl of the short pipe which protruded from a corner of his mouth.
“Sure I’m talking about Andy Mace,” replied Young Dan, recovering swiftly from his astonishment.
“Good,” returned the stranger. “Andy Mace the feller I wanter see pretty quick. Maybe he got plenty tobac, what?”
Young Dan shouldered his axe and descended from the trunk of the prostrate maple. He slipped his feet into the thongs of his snowshoes and put on his coat and mittens.
“I guess he has enough,” he said, pleasantly. “Come along with me and find out. He’s my partner.”