The Magnetic North Part 39

"You _must_ have been."

"No."

"You sure?"

He nodded.

"How did it go--all away--Do you know?"

Again the silent denial. Kaviak looked over his shoulder at the dinner preparations, and then went back to his cricket. It was the best place from which to keep a strict eye on the cook.

"The gintlemin don't feel conversaytional wid a pint o' surrup in his inside."

"I tell you he'd be currled up with colic if he--"

"Well," said O'Flynn hopefully, "bide a bit. He ain't lookin' very brash."

"Come here."

Kaviak got up a second time, but with less alacrity.

"Have you got a pain?"

He stared.

"Does it hurt you there?" Kaviak doubled up suddenly.

"He's awful ticklish," said the Boy.

Mac frowned with perplexity, and Kaviak retired to the cricket.

"Does the can leak anywhere?"

"That excuse won't hold water 'cause the can will." The Colonel had just applied the test.

"Besides, it would have leaked on to something," Mac agreed.

"Oh, well, let's mosy along with our dinner," said Potts.

"It's gettin' pretty serious," remarked the Colonel. "We can't afford to lose a pint o' syrup."

"No, _Siree_, we can't; but there's one thing about Kaviak," said the Boy, "he always owns up. Look here, Kiddie: don't say no; don't shake your head till you've thought. Now, think _hard_."

Kaviak's air of profound meditation seemed to fill every requirement.

"Did you take the awful good syrup and eat it up?"

Kaviak was in the middle of a head-shake when he stopped abruptly. The Boy had said he wasn't to do that. n.o.body had seemed pleased when he said "No."

"I b'lieve we're on the right track. He's remembering. Think again. You are a tip-top man at finding sugar, aren't you?"

"Yes, fin' shugh." Kaviak modestly admitted his prowess in that direction.

"And you get hungry in the early morning?"

Yes, he would go so far as to admit that he did.

"You go skylarkin' about, and you remember--the syrup can! And you get hold of it--didn't you?"

"To-malla."

"You mean yesterday--this morning?"

"N--"

"s.h.!.+"

Kaviak blinked.

"Wait and think. Yesterday this was full. You remember Mac opened it for you?"

Kaviak nodded.

"And now, you see"--he turned the can bottom side up--"all gone!"

"Oh-h!" murmured Kaviak with an accent of polite regret. Then, with recovered cheerfulness, he pointed to the store corner: "Maw!"

Potts laughed in his irritating way, and Mac's face got red. Things began to look black for Kaviak.

"Say, fellas, see here!" The Boy hammered the lid on the can with his fist, and then held it out. "It was put away shut up, for I shut it, and even one of us can't get that lid off without a knife or something to pry it."

The company looked at the small hands doubtfully. They were none too little for many a forbidden feat. How had he got on the swing-shelf?

How--

"Ye see, crayther, it must uv been yersilf, becuz there isn't annybuddy else."

"Look here," said the Colonel, "we'll forgive you this time if you'll own up. Just tell us--"

"Kaviak!" Again that journey from the cricket to the judgment-seat.

"Show us"--Mac had taken the shut tin, and now held it out--"show us how you got the lid off."

But Kaviak turned away. Mac seized him by the shoulder and jerked him round.

Everyone felt it to be suspicious that Kaviak was unwilling even to try to open the all too attractive can. Was he really cunning, and did he want not to give himself away? Wasn't he said to be much older than he looked? and didn't he sometimes look a hundred, and wise for his years?

"See here: I haven't caught you in a lie yet, but if I do--"