d thin, to
share all we got; and he made one of his outlandish Indian signs to
strengthen the oath. A fine way he kept it too!

"Now, if I'm too long-winded, boys, say so; and I'll hurry up."

"No, no! Tell us everything."

"Spin it out as long as you can."

"We don't mind listening half the night. Go ahead!"

At this gust of protest Herb smiled, though rather soberly, and went
ahead as he was bidden.

"We made camp together--him and me. We had two home-camps where I told
you, and met at the end of each week, bringing the skins we had taken,
which we stored in one of 'em. We got along together swimmingly for a
bit. But Chris had a weakness which I had found out long before. I guess
he took it from his mother's people. Give him one drink of whiskey, and
it stirred up all the mud that was in him. There's mud in every man, I
s'pose; and there's nothing like liquor for bringing it to the surface.
A gulp of fire-water changed Chris from an honest, right-hearted fellow
to a crazy devil. This had set the lumbermen against him. But I hoped
that in the lonely woods where we trapped he wouldn't get a chance to
see the stuff. He did, though, and when I wasn't there to make a fight
against his swallowing it.

"It happened that one week he got back to our camp on Togue
Ponds,--where most of our stuff was stored, and where I kept that
moose-head, waiting for a chance to take it down to Greenville,--a day
or two sooner'n me. And the worst luck that ever attended either of us
brought a stranger to the camp at the same time, to shelter for a night.
He was an explorer, a city swell; and I guess he didn't know much about
Injuns or half-breeds, for he gave Chris a little bottle of fiery
whiskey as a parting present. The man told me about it afterwards, and
that he was kind o' scared when the boy--for he wasn't much
more--swallowed it with two gulps, and then followed him into the woods,
howling, capering, and offering to sell him my grand moose-head, and all
the furs we had, for another drink of the burning stuff. I guess that
stranger felt pretty sick over the mischief he had done. He refused to
buy 'em. But when I got back to camp next day, to find the skins gone,
antlers gone, Chris gone; when I ran across the traveller and ferreted
out his story,--I knew, as well as if I seen it, that my partner had
skipped with all my belongings, to sell 'em or trade 'em at some
settlement for more liquor. We had a couple of big birch canoes,-