Thus did the warden bring to a head a question that had been troubling the boy ever since the fox was recovered. "He ain't mine," he gulped. "Oi lost him, and wouldn't never seen him again if it hadn't been fer dem." He nodded in the direction of Pat and Alec. "He's theirs, an' dey ain't no use talkin' about it." Sparrer set his lips firmly.
In an instant Pat and Alec were on their feet, protesting that such talk was foolishness, and that the prize belonged to Sparrer and no one else. But the boy shook his head stubbornly.
"Seems to me," drawled the warden when he could make himself heard, "that this here is a case for a disinterested party to decide. Now if you was to ask me I should say that an even split, fifty-fifty, is the fair thing. This here young tenderfoot comes up here with horseshoes or rabbit's-feet or some other luck charms hung all over him and without no help from any one bags a fortune which he finds running around loose. Right up to that point it's hisn and nobody else ain't got no claim on it. Then he loses it and ain't got no more chance of gettin' it back himself than a bull moose has of growing a long tail. Up steps Pat and Alec and friendly like does for him what he can't do for himself, an' gets the prize back. Now it seems to me that half ought to go to this here young feller fer gettin' it in the first place, and half to the other two fer gettin' it back after it was lost. What do you say, Jim?"
"The only fair thing," declared Jim judicially. "There's enough in it to give 'em all a comf'table bit."
A warm discussion followed in which Hal and Upton sided with the warden and Jim and it ended only when Sparrer at last agreed to a three-way split. From this stand no amount of argument could move him. He would take a third share if Pat and Alec would each take a third. Otherwise he wouldn't take any. And so it was finally agreed.
The skinning and stretching of the hide was left to Alec, who was a past master in the art. While he was thus engaged the warden mysteriously beckoned Pat to one side.
"Pat, whose are these?" he asked gravely, drawing a bunch of traps from under a bunk.
Pat reached for them and examined them curiously. "Mine. That is, mine and Alec's; those are our marks," he replied, pointing to certain file marks on them. "Where did you get them?" he added wonderingly.
"Where I got this fellow," replied the warden, reaching under the bunk and drawing out the body of a beaver. "I know you better than to think you had a hand in this, Pat," he continued, "but"—he hesitated and then continued hurriedly, "I thought perhaps your partner has been doin' a little poachin' unbeknown to you. You know he didn't have the best name ever was when he first came into these parts."
A great light broke over Pat's face. "Alec don't know anything more about this than I do," he declared. "There isn't a straighter man in the woods than Alec is now, and you just want to make up your mind to that right now, Bill. That's the work of that thievin' Injun. You mind what I told you about Sparrer's findin' those traps at the beaver-pond? Well, it's as plain as the nose on your face. That Injun lifted some of our traps and set them there. He knew that if you came snoopin' round and found 'em the marks on 'em would point to us. Those skunks didn't have any traps, anyway. Thinkin' about that fox I'd clean forgotten about the beaver. Poor little chap." Pat stroked the body of the beaver.