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 silly again.  You see, he was in a very savage mood.  He would get over that, but he didn’t realize it then.

As Injun heard these plans, he considered them.  He was very well satisfied where he was.  There had been fighting there, there might be more, and he liked fighting.  Fishing and hunting were all very well, but he’d had a lot of them in his young life, and they were no novelty.  It was like asking a sailor to go for a sail, on his day off.  And Injun couldn’t fully understand Whitey’s wanting to do all these things.  But do you think he voiced his objections to them?  He did not.  For in one way Injun was like a faithful dog he accepted things he didn’t understand.  So one liked his loyalty more than one pitied his ignorance.

No one paid any attention to the boys when they rode away from the Star Circle Ranch.  They might be going hunting, or just for a ride, for all the ranchmen knew or cared.  They struck off toward the northwest, in which direction lay Jimtown, with Moose Lake far beyond, nestling in the foothills of the Rockies.

It was a beautiful day, with the haze of fall shrouding the distance, a hint of brown tingeing the prairie grass, the sun a bit milder with its rays and paler in its face than in midsummer.  And the old sun seemed a trifle lazy, as if lying back awaiting the frost that would nip the rolling mesa, to be followed by the gales that would sweep across it, then by the whirling blizzards that would hold the plains in their frigid grasp.  Yes, it was a beautiful day—­a day on which it was very hard to stay mad.

Creeping across the northern distance the boys saw two wagons.  Evidently they had come from Jimtown.  Wagons are as interesting sights on a prairie as they are uninteresting in a city, so the boys shifted their course slightly that they might investigate.  And these were the rarest wagons that crawled across the plains, for they carried a show!

During the many months that Whitey had been in the West only one show had come to the Junction, and that at a time when Injun and Whitey had been hunting in the mountains.  Lives there a boy with soul so dead that he does not hunger for a show?  I leave you to answer that, and to guess how hungry Whitey was for one.