nd spent
many cold hours waiting for them to pass, while Sam and the girl hunted
in another direction to replenish the supplies. In this manner the
frequenters of these districts had been struck from the list. No one of
them was Jingoss. There remained but one section, and that the most
northerly. If that failed, then there was nothing to do but to retrace
the long, weary journey up the Kabinikagam, past the rapids where Dick
had hurt himself, over the portage, down the Mattawishgina, across the
Missinaibie, on which they had started their travels, to the country of
the Nipissing. Discussing this possibility one rest-time, Dick said:

"We'd be right back where we started. I think it would pay us to go down
to Brunswick House and get a new outfit. It's only about a week up the
Missinaibie." Then, led by inevitable association of ideas, "Wonder if
those Crees had a good time? And I wonder if they've knocked our friend
Ah-tek, the Chippewa, on the head yet? He was a bad customer."

"You better hope they have," replied Sam. "He's got it in for you."

Dick shrugged his shoulders and laughed easily.

"That's all right," insisted the older man; "just the same, an Injun
never forgets and never fails to get even. You may think he's forgotten,
but he's layin' for you just the same," and then, because they happened
to be resting in the lea of a bank and the sun was at its highest for
the day, Sam went on to detail one example after another from his wide
observation of the tenacity with which an Indian pursues an obligation,
whether of gratitude or enmity. "They'll travel a thousand miles to get
even," he concluded. "They'll drop the most important business they
got, if they think they have a good chance to make a killing. He'll run
up against you some day, my son, and then you'll have it out."

"All right," agreed Dick, "I'll take care of him. Perhaps I'd better get
organised; he may be laying for me around the next bend."

"I don't know what made us talk about it," said Sam, "but funnier things
have happened to me." Dick, with mock solicitude, loosened his knife.

But Sam had suddenly become grave. "I believe in those things," he said,
a little fearfully. "They save a man sometimes, and sometimes they help
him to get what he wants. It's a Chippewa we're after; it's a Chippewa
we've been talkin' about. They's something in it."

"I don't know what you're driving at," said Dick.

"I don't know," confessed Sam, "but I have a