"Who stole it?" he gasped, after a minute, scarcely knowing that he
spoke aloud.
Unnoticed in the firelight, Cyrus clapped a strong hand over the boy's
mouth, to stifle further questions.
"Keep still!" he whispered.
But Herb, who was, as usual, perched upon the "deacon's seat," leaned
forward, with a laugh which was more than half a snarl.
"Who stole it?" he echoed. "Why, the other fellow--my chum; the man whom
I carried for a mile on my back, through a snow-heaped forest, the first
time I saw him, when I had lugged him out of a heavy drift. _He_ stole
it, Kid, and a'most everything I owned with it."
[Illustration: THE CAMP ON MILLINOKETT LAKE.]
With a savage kick of his moccasined foot, the woodsman suddenly
assaulted a blazing log. It sent a shower of sparks aloft, and caused a
bright flame to shoot, rocket-like, from the heart of the fire, which
showed the guide's face. His fine eyes reminded Cyrus of Millinokett
Lake when a thunder-storm broke over it. Their gray was dark and
troubled; the black pupils seemed to shrink, as if a tempest beat on
them; fierce flashes of light played through them.
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