"I am wondering if by any chance I could possibly be right," replied
Jack. "Tell me, Larry, did that man out there, the man in the mackinaw,
have anything to do with causing those grey hairs above your ears--did
he?"

"You _certainly_ have the intuition of an animal," was the reply. "Jack,
I love you, old pal; you're white and sharp and clean right through!
Yes, he 'powder-puffed' my hair. I'll tell you about it some day. Not
to-night. You must sleep to-night, and remember, 'all's well' as long as
Foxy's at the helm."

"The man wouldn't shoot Fox-Foot, wouldn't _kill_ him, would he, Larry?"
came Jack's anxious voice.

"Shoot him! Shoot Foxy!" Then Matt Larson laughed gleefully into his
blankets. "Why, Jack, no man living could ever get a bead on Foxy in
this wilderness. No man could ever find him or see him, though he were
lying right at the man's own feet. I think too much of Foxy to expose
him to danger. But the best of it is, you can't put your eye, or your
ear, or your fingers on that boy. You can't even _smell_ him. He's the
color of the underbrush, silent as midnight, quick as lightning. You
can't detect the difference between the smell of his clothes and of his
skin and burning brushwood, or deer-hide. He can sidle up to the most
timid wild thing. Oh! don't you worry, son! Go to sleep; our Fox-Foot
is his own man, nobody else's."

"All right, Larry, but I'm here, if anyone wants me," yawned Jack.

And Matt Larson knew in his heart of hearts that Jack Cornwall spoke
truly--that he was there to stand by his uncle and Fox-Foot should he
be called upon to do so.

Dawn was breaking as they awoke--simultaneously to a slight crackling
sound outside. Larry's head burrowed out of the tent.

"Foxy cooking breakfast," was his cool remark. Then, "Jingo! He's got
a fish--a regular crackerjack! It's as long as my arm! Ha! there's a
breakfast for you!" But Jack was already up and out.

"Fine luck I have! Big fish!" smiled Fox-Foot, as fresh and alert as if
he had had a night in blankets instead of hours of watchfulness. Already
half of the freshwater beauty was sizzling in the frying-pan, the Indian
lifting and turning it with a long pointed stick. Matt Larson got busy
coffee-making. "We'll pit these two odors one against the other," he
remarked; "though I am bound to admit that the only time a frying fish
does really smell good and appetizing is when it has been dead about
twenty minutes, and is cooking over a camp-fi