“We lose two miles good work,” he explained.  “We build decoy fire, we leave tin can, he come; he think we go that way, but we go north.”  Back to the forks and up the northern branch they pulled, both Larry and Jack not only willing to have done four miles of seemingly unnecessary paddling, but loud in their praise and appreciation of the Indian’s shrewd tactics.  At supper time Fox-Foot would allow no fire to be built, no landing to be made, no trace of their passing to be left.  They ate canned meat and marmalade, drank again of the stream and pushed on, until just at dusk they reached the edge of a long, still lake, with shores of granite and dense fir forest.  “Larry and Jack, you sleep in canoe to-night; no camp.  Lake ten miles long; no current; I paddle—­me,” said the Indian, and nothing that Larry could urge would alter the boy’s edict.

“Jack, you must wonder what all these precautions are for, yet you never ask,” said Larry.

“Because I know,” returned the boy.  “We are trying to escape the man in the mackinaw.  He is following you.  He is your enemy.”

“Yes, boy, and to-night you shall know why,” replied Larry.  “You have taken so much for granted, you have never asked a single question; now you shall know what Foxy and I are after.”

“You said you were after furs,” Jack smiled.

“Yes, but not furs alone, my son,” said the man.  Then leaning meaningly towards the boy he half whispered, “I am after the king’s coin—­gold!  My boy, nuggets and nuggets of gold, that I prospected for myself up in these wilds two years ago, found pockets of it in the rocks, cached it, away, as I thought, from all human eyes, awaiting the time I could safely bring it to ‘the front.’  I knew of but one being in all the North that I could trust with my secret.  That being is Fox-Foot.  One night I confided it to him, showing him the map I had made of the lakes and streams of the north country, and the spot where the gold was cached.  We were, as I thought, alone in Fox-Foot’s log house.  That is, alone in speaking English, for his people don’t understand a single word that is not Chippewa.  We were poring over the map I had made, when something made me look behind me.  Against the small hole in the logs that served as a window was a man’s head and shoulders—­a white man—­and he wore a grey mackinaw.  Foxy and I were on our feet at once, but the man crashed through the woods and was gone.  But he had heard my story, had seen I had a map, and—­well, he wants my gold!  That is all.”

III

“And the grey hair above your eyes, Larry?” asked Jack, in an awed voice.