CHAPTER XII.
ON THE TRACK OF ELI.
Owen tossed the trap aside.
Evidently he had been expecting some such remark from the other and was not at all surprised at being called on for assistance.
"I think that if anything has happened to Eli we can lay it to that ungrateful dog, Stackpole," he remarked, frowning a trifle, as if his memories of the timber-cruiser were not of the most pleasant character imaginable.
"You don't like that fellow one little bit, I can see; and do you know the thought struck me when I saw him curl his lip on seeing you with us that at some time in the past you two must have been at loggerheads," observed Cuthbert.
"Which is true, every word of it.

If you had looked closer you might have noticed a little notch in the fellow's left ear.

I was the cause of that, and it happened some years ago, when I was much smaller than I am now, and less able to take care of myself.

But I was born in the woods, and brought up with a rifle in my hands, so that I learned early in life to shoot straight." "Yes," interrupted Cuthbert, "I saw that you were a dead shot when you tried my pet Marlin and brought down that hawk on the wing.

I thought I had some little ability in that line myself, but when I saw you trim that buccaneer of the air so easily as if you were not half trying, I gave up thinking myself in it.