thought he was something of a
molly-coddle. He was angry enough, but this thought made him
angrier--that he hadn't been treated worse. Which goes to show what a
reasonable thing anger is!

Whitey went out, sat down behind the cook's shack, and gave way to
gloomy reflections. He reviewed his past life for quite a way back, and
everything in it seemed to be wrong. He wanted to do big things, and he
always was just missing them. If he had been earlier when he followed
those train robbers, he might have warned the people on the train, and
been a sort of hero. If, if, if--oh, what was the use?

But it certainly is bitter to think you might make yourself a hero, and
find that some one else has made a fool of you. Whitey remembered a
saying that the first time a fellow is fooled it is the other fellow's
fault--and the next time it is his own. They wouldn't fool him again.
He'd do something big yet. He'd show them!

The first thing to do was to find Injun. The next thing to do was to
leave that Star Circle Ranch. Whitey hated it there, anyway. And the
next was a thing not to do--not to go back to the Bar O, and have Bill
Jordan and the others laugh at him. The first thing proved easy, and
Whitey proceeded to tell Injun his troubles.

"Huh," said Injun. "Better'n him school."

"I know it's better than school," said Whitey, annoyed, as we always are
when we seek sympathy and get facts. "I'd rather do 'most anything than
go to that awful school. But what I object to is being made a fool of."
He was suffering from mortification, which is a sort of ingrowing anger,
and the more it sunk in, the angrier he got.

And here was the plan he unfolded to Injun; the plan to get even with
Bill Jordan. They would go to Moose Lake, in the foothills of the
mountains. You may remember that on the southwestern shore of this lake
was a cabin, which had been the scene of some of the boys' former
adventures. They would make this cabin their headquarters. Bill Jordan
never would suspect that they were there. They would live by fishing
and hunting, which were good at that time of year. As for other
provisions, Whitey had some money, and they could buy them at Jimtown,
on the way. No one knew them there. Whitey even planned getting a
message to Bill Jordan that he, Whitey, was dead. Bill would feel pretty
sorry then, at the result of his silly trick. And when Whitey thought
Bill was sorry enough, he would return, and advise Bill never to be so
si