some other luck charms hung all over him and without no
help from any one bags a fortune which he finds running around loose.
Right up to that point it's hisn and nobody else ain't got no claim on
it. Then he loses it and ain't got no more chance of gettin' it back
himself than a bull moose has of growing a long tail. Up steps Pat and
Alec and friendly like does for him what he can't do for himself, an'
gets the prize back. Now it seems to me that half ought to go to this
here young feller fer gettin' it in the first place, and half to the
other two fer gettin' it back after it was lost. What do you say, Jim?"

"The only fair thing," declared Jim judicially. "There's enough in it to
give 'em all a comf'table bit."

A warm discussion followed in which Hal and Upton sided with the warden
and Jim and it ended only when Sparrer at last agreed to a three-way
split. From this stand no amount of argument could move him. He would
take a third share if Pat and Alec would each take a third. Otherwise he
wouldn't take any. And so it was finally agreed.

The skinning and stretching of the hide was left to Alec, who was a past
master in the art. While he was thus engaged the warden mysteriously
beckoned Pat to one side.

"Pat, whose are these?" he asked gravely, drawing a bunch of traps from
under a bunk.

Pat reached for them and examined them curiously. "Mine. That is, mine
and Alec's; those are our marks," he replied, pointing to certain file
marks on them. "Where did you get them?" he added wonderingly.

"Where I got this fellow," replied the warden, reaching under the bunk
and drawing out the body of a beaver. "I know you better than to think
you had a hand in this, Pat," he continued, "but"--he hesitated and then
continued hurriedly, "I thought perhaps your partner has been doin' a
little poachin' unbeknown to you. You know he didn't have the best name
ever was when he first came into these parts."

A great light broke over Pat's face. "Alec don't know anything more
about this than I do," he declared. "There isn't a straighter man in the
woods than Alec is now, and you just want to make up your mind to that
right now, Bill. That's the work of that thievin' Injun. You mind what I
told you about Sparrer's findin' those traps at the beaver-pond? Well,
it's as plain as the nose on your face. That Injun lifted some of our
traps and set them there. He knew that if you came snoopin' round and
found 'em the marks on 'em would p