“I was there once, and not so very long ago, my boy,” said Matt Larson, with a quick frown.  Then, half to himself, “But the man in the mackinaw* will never catch me unarmed again.”

[A mackinaw is a short, rough coat of material much like a grey horse blanket.  It is worn by most lumberjacks, explorers, miners and woodsmen in the regions north of the great Canadian lakes.]

“The man in the mackinaw, eh?” echoed Jack, lifting his eyebrows meaningly.

“Oh, ho, youngster!  You’re the boy for me!” grinned his uncle.  “You’re sharp!  You’ve caught on, all right.  Yes; he’s the man you’ve got to keep your eyes in the back of your head to watch for.  He’s a bad lot.  He may bother us.  Now, are you afraid to tackle the wilderness, since you know there is menace—­perhaps danger?”

“I’m not afraid of anything with you, Matt Larson,” said the boy, gravely, looking the other directly in the eyes.

“But suppose we should get separated, by some unlucky chance, what then?” asked the man.

“I don’t think I would be afraid—­I shall not be afraid, even then,” Jack answered.

“That’s the way to talk!  Now I know you are game,” said Larson, seizing the boy by the shoulders and peering into his eyes.  Then they shook hands silently, but it was an unspoken pledge nevertheless.

“The man in the mackinaw,” repeated Jack, slowly, as their hands gripped.  Then his eyes narrowed down to little slits of light.  “I think, Larry, I should know him by instinct.”

“You’re a wolf on two legs, boy!” replied Larry, with delight.  “You have the intuition of the wiser animals.  Why have I never really known you before?  Why have I not had you?”

“You’ve got me now, anyway, and you are going to keep me, Larry,” said the boy.  Then they said good-night with a bond of manly friendship between them that was destined to last throughout their lives.

* * * * * * * *

They left the luxurious sleeping-car of the great Canadian Pacific Railway, at a little settlement on the north shore of Lake Superior.  There were but three buildings in the place, all of logs:  the railway station, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s trading post, and “French” Pierre’s “bunk and eating-house.”  The northern forest closed in on all sides, and the little settlement in all amounted to nothing more than a clearing.

The instant they stepped from the car, Matt Larson’s eyes swept the platform, alighting with a pleased expression on the figure of a wiry, alert-looking boy of perhaps eighteen, who stepped forward silently, quickly, and laid his hand in Larson’s, outstretched to greet him.  The boy was Indian through and through, with a fine, thin, copper-colored face, and eyes of very rare beauty.  The instant Jack Cornwall saw those eyes, he knew that they could see almost unseeable things.  But Matt Larson was introducing them.  “Fox-Foot,” he said, turning to the Indian, “here is Jack, my own sister’s son.  He has my confidence.  He will know all that I know.  You may trust him with everything.  Jack, old man, this Chippewa boy, Fox-Foot, is my friend and our guide.  His canoe is ours for weeks ahead.  He knows what I know.  You may trust him with everything.  Shake hands.”