w.

All the collateral circumstantial evidence so fully corroborated this
that the Indians were acquitted. The shot that killed him hit him in
the back of the head and was of a calibre different from that of the
Indians' guns; and his deputy never returned to Guthrie.

That it was a murder prearranged by some of the greedy contestants for
his land, was further proved by the fact that every scrap of his
private papers was found to have disappeared, and, through their loss,
his family lost the homestead.

Curly's end is another story. Happily he was spared to me some years.

CHAPTER X

THE THREE-LEGGED DOE AND THE BLIND BUCK

We had just pulled the canoe out of the water and turned it over after a
wet day in the bush across Giant's Lake, and were drying ourselves before
the camp-fire, when Con taught a lesson and perpetrated a confidence.
His keen, shrewd eyes twinkling, and a broad smile shortening his long,
lean face till its great Roman nose and pointed chin were hobnobbing
sociably together, the best hunter and guide on the Gatineau sat pouring
boiling water through the barrel and into the innermost holy of holies of
the intricate lock mechanism of his .303 Winchester--_to dry it out and
prevent rusting_ from the wetting it had received in the bush.

"Sure! youse never heerd of it before?" he asked in surprise. "Dryin' a
gun with hot water 's safest way to keep her from rustin'; carries out
all th' old water hangin' round her insides 'n' makes her so damned hot
Mr. Rust don't even have time to throw up a lean-to 'n' get to eatin' of
her 'fore the new water's all gone; 'n' Mr. Rust can't get to eat none
'thout water, no more'n a deer can stay out of a salt lick, or Erne Moore
can keep away from the _habitaw_ gals, or Tit Moody can get his own
consent to stop his tongue waggin' off tales 'bout how women winks down
t' Tupper Lake--when _he's_ rowin' 'em."

"Shouldn't think such a little water as you have used would make the gun
hot enough to dry it out," I suggested.

"Hot! Won't make her hot! Why, she's hotter now 'n' billy Buell got
last October when that loony _habitaw_ cook o' ourn made up all our
marmalade and currant jelly into pies that looked 'n' bit 'n' tasted like
wagon dope wropt in tough brown paper; hot! 's hot this minute 's Elise
Lievre's woman got last Spring when she heerd o' him a-sittin' up t' a
Otter Lake squaw. Why, say! youse couldn't no more keep a gun from
rustin' in this wet