A slow grin overspread the face of his assailant as he strode over and looked down at the white still face of his victim. After all it was better so. He had not killed him and there was less to fear from the long arm of the law. Contemptuously he touched the still form with the toe of a shoe. Then gloatingly he picked up the fox, hesitated and picked up the rabbit. Without another glance at the huddled form on the snow he turned and vanished among the trees.
CHAPTER XVI
THE CONFERENCE
Sparrer's eyelids fluttered, then slowly lifted. Dully and uncomprehendingly he stared up at a fretwork of bare brown branches against a background of blue. Where was he? What had happened? Then a throb of pain in his head cleared his senses and memory returned all too vividly. His brows contracted in a black scowl, and slowly and painfully he rolled over and got to his feet, staring about for his assailant. But of the outlaw there was no sign save the broken crust where the axe had plunged through. Nor was there any trace of the black fox save a little spot of crimson and two or three black hairs where the animal had lain.
How long he had been unconscious he had no means of knowing, but it could not have been long, or he would have been frost-bitten. As it was he was merely chilled and numb from the cold. His head ached badly, and passing a mittened hand over it he found a big lump where the axe had hit him. Moreover, he felt sick to his stomach, dizzy and weak. But for his physical ailments he had no thought. Wrath, black, boiling rage, surged over him. He had been robbed! He had been treacherously outwitted! For the moment it was the latter fact rather than the former that was the cause of his hot resentment. He, Sparrer Muldoon, who had lived by his wits ever since he could remember, had been caught napping!
"An' me wid de drop on him!" he exclaimed bitterly. "He put me down fer de count, but it was a foul, an' Oi wasn't lookin' fer no foul. Serves me right." He smiled bitterly. "Oi ought t'known better than t' give him an openin'. Serves me right fer listenin' t' his spiel. If ever Oi get de drop on him again he'll wish he'd never set eyes on Sparrer Muldoon."
This was idle boasting, and Sparrer knew it. The chances that he would ever again set eyes on the wily redskin were exceedingly slim. Still, it was possible that Pat and Alec might be able to pick up his trail, and the sooner they were put wise to the affair the better. He would get back to camp as soon as possible. He picked up his rifle, and even as he did so a new thought flashed across his mind. Why tell of his experience at all? Why mention the black fox? He could explain the bump on his head by saying that he had slipped and fallen, striking his head against a log. Pat and Alec need never know that he had lost the rare pelt for them for all time, nor that he had been such a tenderfoot as to be outwitted by an Indian on whom he already had the drop. Why say a word about it? To tell would be likely to win for himself nothing but contempt—contempt for his weakness in parleying with the outlaw, and for his stupidity in being outwitted.
But there was a hope, a faint one, to be sure, but still a hope, that by some special favor of Providence Pat and Alec might be able to trace his assailant and recover the skin. Not to tell would be to surrender without a fight, and this was directly contrary to the boy's nature. A double motive urged him to leave no stone unturned that might lead to the capture of the Indian—the desire to recover the rich prize and the spirit of revenge. He could tell of the robbery without in any way committing himself in the matter of the temptation which had led to the parley with the outlaw. This is what he would do. He didn't want his companions to think worse of him than was absolutely necessary.
So with his mind made up to this course he headed for camp. "Click-clack, coward! Click-clack, coward!" His very shoes mocked him. He tried to shut out the sound, but he could not. Had Edward Muldoon, Boy Scout, won over Sparrer Muldoon, street gamin, only to lose in the end? Where the trail led close to the end of the big beaver dam he stopped abruptly and a last brief battle was fought between Scout and gamin. When it was over he pushed on with an eagerness he had not felt before, for the Scout had triumphed, and this time he knew that the victory was final. He would tell the whole story from beginning to end and spare himself nothing. "Youse ain't no quitter!" he muttered to himself fiercely. "Youse is goin' ter tell de truth, de whole truth and nothing but de truth."