“Here, take my revolver,” replied the man.  “And I tell you, Fox-Foot, if they kick up, you put a bullet clean through them, both of them.”

“Sure.  Give me it,” said the Indian in a soft, oily voice.  Then, “Now, now, I feel safer with that inside my shirt.”

Matt Larson’s face was white as a sheet.  He did not care a dollar for his lost gold, but for this Indian boy to fail him—­oh, it was heartbreaking!  He buried his face in his hands.  “Oh, Foxy!” he almost sobbed.  “Foxy, my little Chippewa friend, I have tried so hard to treat you square—­and—­Foxy, you’ve failed me!  You’ve failed me.”  And big, burly Jack Cornwall’s tear-wet face was lying against Larry’s hand, and poor, big, burly Jack Cornwall’s voice was catching in his throat as he said: 

“Oh, Fox-Foot!  Fox-Foot!  I’d rather have died than heard this—­this from you!”

Then came a hurried good-bye between the two creatures outside, and Fox-Foot slipped back into the tent, slipped back noiselessly, snakily as an eel in its own slime.

For a full hour Larry and Jack lay there in the dark, hand gripping hand.  One sack of gold had gone, stolen by their trusted friend, who lay near them, a loaded revolver inside his shirt, and a threat on his lips—­a threat to kill them both.

At the end of the hour the Indian arose, struck a match, lighted a bit of candle, and taking the revolver from his shirt, examined it closely.  Through narrowed lids Larry could see by even that faint light that it was fully loaded.

With a sweet, almost motherly movement, Matt Larson curled his arm around the boy at his side.  They at least would face death together.  But the Indian was crawling slowly, silently up towards them, closer, closer.  At last the slim, brown fingers touched Larry’s shoulder, and the soft Chippewa voice whispered: 

“Larry, Jack, wake!  See, see, the great thing I got.  I got his revolver.  He never harm us now.”

Larry sat bolt upright.

“What do you mean, Foxy?  What do you mean, I say?  What have you done with my gold?”

“Gold?  Your gold?” exclaimed the Indian boy in surprise.  “Your gold?  Why, she’s all here”; and flinging back his cover blanket he displayed a gorgeous sight.  There, in a thick, deep layer, piled on his under blanket, lay every single, blessed nugget belonging to the one sack he had slept on.

“But,” stammered Larry, his eyes popping out of his head in amazement, “but, Foxy, I heard you bargain with him, I heard you give him the sack of gold.”

“No,” replied the Indian, smiling; “heard me give him the sack, the sack filled with stones and pebbles, not with gold.  But I’ve got his gun, got it here, here in my shirt.  He is now unarmed. He can’t shoot you now!”

Matt Larson held out his arms.  “Oh, Foxy, Foxy, forgive me, forgive me!  For the moment I mistrusted you, I doubted you, my boy.”