greatly obliged to you."

"Thought you'd be," grunted Leon. "That's how I got even."

"What do you mean?" Tom wanted to know. "You got even by placing
me under a great obligation?"

"Just that," nodded the cook, "we had trouble, once, and you
came out on top, didn't you?"

"Yes; but that little affair needn't have prevented us from being
friends."

"It did, until I had done something to make you needed me as a
friend," the cook declared.

Tom laughed at this statement of the case. It accorded quite closely,
however, with the cook's generally sulky disposition. Even a
friendship Leon would offer or accept grudgingly.

"But why did you follow me?" Tom continued, as they neared the camp.
"Did you think I was going to run into danger?"

Leon hesitated.

"Well," he admitted, finally, "when I saw you stealing off, soft
like, I had a queer notion come over me that, maybe, you were
discouraged, and that you were going off to put an end to yourself."

Tom started, stared in amazement, then spoke in a tone of pretended
anger:

"Much obliged for your fine opinion of me, Leon," he declared.
"Only cowards and lunatics commit suicide."

"That's all right," nodded the cook doggedly. "I've seen men
lose their minds out here in these gold fields."

They were now in camp.

"Wait, and I'll call Ferrers and a few of the men, Leon," Tom
proposed.

"What for? To stand guard?"

"No; we must send back a few of the men to find that man you wounded.
It was Eb. He fell in a heap. If his own companions didn't
carry him away he was left in a bad fix."

"You'll be going back to nurse rattlesnakes yet!" almost exploded
the cook.

"That's all right, but we're going to find that wounded man if
he's in need of help," Tom stoutly maintained.

He called Jim Ferrers, who roused five more men. Then the party
returned to the place on the trail where Eb had been left. There
were still blood spots on the ground, but Eb had vanished. The
party spent some minutes in searching the vicinity, then concluded
that Gage had rescued and carried away the wounded man.

It may be said, in passing, that Eb was subsequently found, by
officers, lying in a shack not far from Dugout City. The fellow
was nearly dead, when found, from careless handling of his wound.
At Dugout the surgeons amputated his wounded leg, and Eb finally
wound up in prison.

During all the excitement Hazelton had not been aroused. He knew
nothing of what had h