ugh
the ice on the lake. The map got wet and was almost destroyed, so I
copied it out on cotton with marking ink, and sewed it inside the lining
of my coat, and it did not crackle, as the paper map would have done had
he passed his hands over it. Why, he never suspected it was there."
Jack drew a great breath of relief. "I wouldn't care if he did get it,
Larry, so long as he left you alive."
"Oh, he's too cowardly to kill a man outright; don't be afraid of that.
But he's after the King's Coin, all right," was the reply.
"And he don't get King's Coin, not while I live--me," said the low voice
of Fox-Foot, as, with squared shoulders and set teeth, he gripped his
paddle firmly and started up the long stretch of Ten-mile Lake.
* * * * * * * *
All that night Larry and Jack slept in the canoe, while the Chippewa boy
paddled noiselessly, mile after mile. Above them the loons laughed, and
herons called, and in the dense forest ashore foxes barked and owls
hooted. A beautiful bow of light arched itself in the north, its long,
silvery fingers stretching and darting up to the sky's zenith. But the
Indian paddled on. Those wild sounds and scenes were his birthright, and
he knew no fear of them.
At daylight he beached the canoe so motionlessly the sleepers never
stirred, and he wakened them only when he had the coffee made and a
huge pan of delicious bacon fried above the coals. Both of the paleface
friends then arose, yawned, stretched, stripped and plunged into the
lake, to swim about for a few moments, and then to jump into their
shirts and sweaters, and fall upon the coffee and bacon with fine
relish.
"I believe," said Jack, devouring his third helping, "that my eyes are
better. They don't ache or smart in the least to-day."
"Eye bad?" asked Fox-Foot.
Jack explained.
"I cure, me, if you like. Root good for bad eye grows here, north," said
the Chippewa.
"Better let him try," urged Larry. "He knows all these things. His
flower seeds have evidently put the kibosh on the man in the mackinaw."
"I get root, you try. No harm," said the Indian. "You scairt put in your
eye, then just smell it, and tie round your head."
"I'll try it, by all means," asserted Jack.
So, at noon, while Larry and Jack cooked the dinner, Fox-Foot penetrated
the woods, returning with some crooked little brown roots, which he
bound about Jack's forehead and made him inhale. They exuded a peculiar
sweetish odor, that seem
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