ed to wash the eyeball like water, and when the
afternoon was half spent, Jack remarked that his eyelids had ceased to
smart.
"One week, maybe, be all right," answered the Indian. And his words
proved correct. Daily he gathered fresh roots, treating Jack's eyes as
skilfully as the oldest medicine man of his tribe could have done, until
the poor red rims faded white, and the bloodshot eyeballs grew clear
and bluish. Jack was beside himself with gratitude and delight, his one
regret being that there was no possible way of mailing a letter to his
parents telling them the good news. This week was one of work, sometimes
toil. Often they encountered rapids over which they must portage. Once
it was a whole mile through brush and rock and deep, soft mosses, but
still they struggled on, until one evening, as they pitched camp and
lighted their fire, Fox-Foot said coolly:
"You know this place, Larry?"
"No," was the answer, "never saw it before."
"The reason you say that," said the Indian, "is 'cause you come and go
over that bluff behind us. Lake Nameless just twenty yards 'cross that
bluff."
"_What_!" yelled Larry.
"I bring you in other side. Bluff separate this river and Lake Nameless.
There is your cache," laughed Fox-Foot, throwing a pebble and striking a
point of red rock ten yards away.
Larry and Jack fairly stumbled over their own feet to get there. Every
mark that Matt Larson had left to identify the hiding-place of his
treasure still remained undisturbed. The round white pebble placed near
the shelving rock, the three-cornered flint, the fine, tiny grey bits of
stone set like a bird's eggs in a nest of lichen, the two standing pines
with a third fallen, storm-wrecked, at their roots--every landmark was
there, intact.
Larry almost flew for the pick, and began to hack away at loose rocks,
swinging the pick above shoulder as a woodsman swings an axe. Two feet
below the surface, the pick caught in a web of cloth. In another minute
Larry lifted out an old woollen jersey undershirt, that had been
fastened up bag-wise. He snatched his knife, ripped open the sleeves,
and the setting sun shot over a huge heap of yellow richness, quarts
and quarts of heavy golden nuggets--_the King's Coin_. Larry sat down
limply, wiping the oozing drops from his forehead. The two boys stood
gazing at the treasure as if fascinated. Then Jack moistened his lips
with his tongue, drew the back of his hand across his blinking eyes,
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