“I guess I’m good for it.  Feel that forearm,” answered Jack.

Larry ran his fingers down the tense muscles, then up to the manly shoulder-blades.  “Why, boy, you are built like an ox!” he exclaimed.

“Just father’s expression!” smiled Jack.

“Well, to bed and sleep now!  If you hear any creeping noise in the night it will be Foxy.  He’ll never let another living soul near us while we sleep,” said Larry, as he prepared for his blanket bed.

“What are you thinking of, boy?” he added, curiously.

“I am wondering if by any chance I could possibly be right,” replied Jack.  “Tell me, Larry, did that man out there, the man in the mackinaw, have anything to do with causing those grey hairs above your ears—­did he?”

“You certainly have the intuition of an animal,” was the reply.  “Jack, I love you, old pal; you’re white and sharp and clean right through!  Yes, he ‘powder-puffed’ my hair.  I’ll tell you about it some day.  Not to-night.  You must sleep to-night, and remember, ‘all’s well’ as long as Foxy’s at the helm.”

“The man wouldn’t shoot Fox-Foot, wouldn’t kill him, would he, Larry?” came Jack’s anxious voice.

“Shoot him!  Shoot Foxy!” Then Matt Larson laughed gleefully into his blankets.  “Why, Jack, no man living could ever get a bead on Foxy in this wilderness.  No man could ever find him or see him, though he were lying right at the man’s own feet.  I think too much of Foxy to expose him to danger.  But the best of it is, you can’t put your eye, or your ear, or your fingers on that boy.  You can’t even smell him.  He’s the color of the underbrush, silent as midnight, quick as lightning.  You can’t detect the difference between the smell of his clothes and of his skin and burning brushwood, or deer-hide.  He can sidle up to the most timid wild thing.  Oh! don’t you worry, son!  Go to sleep; our Fox-Foot is his own man, nobody else’s.”

“All right, Larry, but I’m here, if anyone wants me,” yawned Jack.

And Matt Larson knew in his heart of hearts that Jack Cornwall spoke truly—­that he was there to stand by his uncle and Fox-Foot should he be called upon to do so.

Dawn was breaking as they awoke—­simultaneously to a slight crackling sound outside.  Larry’s head burrowed out of the tent.

“Foxy cooking breakfast,” was his cool remark.  Then, “Jingo!  He’s got a fish—­a regular crackerjack!  It’s as long as my arm!  Ha! there’s a breakfast for you!” But Jack was already up and out.

“Fine luck I have!  Big fish!” smiled Fox-Foot, as fresh and alert as if he had had a night in blankets instead of hours of watchfulness.  Already half of the freshwater beauty was sizzling in the frying-pan, the Indian lifting and turning it with a long pointed stick.  Matt Larson got busy coffee-making.  “We’ll pit these two odors one against the other,” he remarked; “though I am bound to admit that the only time a frying fish does really smell good and appetizing is when it has been dead about twenty minutes, and is cooking over a camp-fire.”  Then quickly, in a low, tense voice:  “Where is he, Foxy?  Where did you leave him?”