lace!" he shouted again, but
still there was no response from Seth.

"I'm thinkin' now Seth has gone too far to hear," said Jamie to
himself. "'Twould be fine to find Lem's silver all alone and take un
back to camp. I'll just do what the writin' says. I'll pace up the
places. I can do un all by myself, and 'twill be a fine surprise to un
all to take the silver back to camp."

Jamie had no doubt that the mysterious cache contained the stolen fox
pelt. No thought of disappointment in this or of danger to himself
entered his head. His whole mind was centred upon one point. He would
be the hero of the Bay if, quite alone, he succeeded in recovering
Lem's property and at the same time in clearing Indian Jake of
suspicion.

Without further delay he drew from his pocket the carefully folded
copy of directions that Doctor Joe had given him and sat down to study
it.

CHAPTER XIII

SURPRISED AND CAPTURED

"Twenty paces to a hackmatack tree, north," read Jamie. He drew from
his pocket the little compass Doctor Joe had given him, and took the
direction.

"That's the way she goes, the way the needle points," he said to
himself. "I'll pace un off. North is the way she goes first."

But an obstacle presented itself. The northern face of the rock was
irregular, and from end to end fully thirty feet in length. From what
point of the rock was the northerly line to begin? Where should he
begin to pace? Finally he selected a middle point as the most
probable.

"'Twill be from here," he decided. "They'd never be startin' the line
from anywheres but the middle."

Holding the compass in his hand that he might make no mistake, and
trembling with the excitement of one about to make a great discovery,
he paced to the northward, stretching his short legs to the longest
possible stride, until he counted twenty paces. It brought him not to
a hackmatack tree, but to the middle of several spruce trees. He
returned to the rock and tried again. This time he was led to a tangle
of brush to the left of the spruce trees into which his former effort
had taken him. He was vastly puzzled.

"'Tis something I does wrong," he mused. "Doctor Joe were sayin' the
compass points right, and she is right. 'Tis wonderful strange
though."

He experimented again and discovered that if he did not hold the
compass perfectly level the needle did not swing properly. In his
excitement he had doubtless tipped the compass, and with the needle
thus bo