the mud that was in him.  There’s mud in every man, I s’pose; and there’s nothing like liquor for bringing it to the surface.  A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest, right-hearted fellow to a crazy devil.  This had set the lumbermen against him.  But I hoped that in the lonely woods where we trapped he wouldn’t get a chance to see the stuff.  He did, though, and when I wasn’t there to make a fight against his swallowing it.

“It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue Ponds,—­where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,—­a day or two sooner’n me.  And the worst luck that ever attended either of us brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a night.  He was an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn’t know much about Injuns or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of fiery whiskey as a parting present.  The man told me about it afterwards, and that he was kind o’ scared when the boy—­for he wasn’t much more—­swallowed it with two gulps, and then followed him into the woods, howling, capering, and offering to sell him my grand moose-head, and all the furs we had, for another drink of the burning stuff.  I guess that stranger felt pretty sick over the mischief he had done.  He refused to buy ’em.  But when I got back to camp next day, to find the skins gone, antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across the traveller and ferreted out his story,—­I knew, as well as if I seen it, that my partner had skipped with all my belongings, to sell ’em or trade ’em at some settlement for more liquor.  We had a couple of big birch canoes,—­one of ’em was missing too,—­and a river being near, the thing could be easy managed.

“I’ll allow that I raged tremendous.  The losses were bad; but to be robbed by your own chum, the man you had saved and stuck to, the only being you had said a word to for months, was sickening.  I swore I’d shoot the hound if I found him.  I spread the news at every camp and farm-settlement through the forest country, and we had a rousing hunt after the fellow; but he gave us the slip, though I heard of him afterwards at a distant town, where he sold the furs.”

“I suppose he left the State,” said Cyrus.

“I guess he did.  But for a big while I used to think he’d come back to our camp some day, and let me have it out with him; for he wasn’t a coward, and we had been fast chums.”

“And he didn’t?”

“Not as I know of.  The next year I gave up trapping, which was an awful cruel as well as a lonely business, and took to moose-hunting and guiding.  I haven’t been anear the old camps for ages.”

“Perhaps you will come across him again some day,” suggested Dol, with unusual timidity.

“P’raps so, Kid.  And, faith, when I think of that, it seems as if there were two creatures inside o’ me fighting tooth and claw.  One is all for hammering him to a jelly.  The other is sort o’ pitiful, and says, ’Mebbe ‘twasn’t out-an’-out his fault.’  Which of them two’ll get the best of it, if ever I’m face to face with Cross-eyed Chris, I dunno.”