the grim silence, they had watched the flickering light of
their camp-fire on the walls of rock--and they had found gold!

Just now, if Rod could have moved himself by magic, he would have been
safely back in camp. He listened. From far back over the trail he had
followed there came a lonely, plaintive, almost pleading cry.

"'Ello--'ello--'ello!"

It sounded like a distant human greeting, but Rod knew that it was the
awakening night cry of what Wabi called the "man owl." It was weirdly
human-like; and the echoes came softly, and more softly, until ghostly
voices seemed to be whispering in the blackness about him.

"'Ello--'ello--'ello!"

The boy shivered and laid his rifle across his knees. There was
tremendous comfort in the rifle. Rod fondled it with his fingers, and
two or three times he felt as though he would almost like to talk to it.
Only those who have gone far into the silence and desolation of the
unblazed wilderness know just how human a good rifle becomes to its
owner. It is a friend every hour of the night and day, faithful to its
master's desires, keeping starvation at bay and holding death for his
enemies; a guaranty of safety at his bedside by night, a sharp-fanged
watch-dog by day, never treacherous and never found wanting by the one
who bestows upon it the care of a comrade and friend. Thus had Rod come
to look upon his rifle. He rubbed the barrel now with his mittens; he
polished the stock as he sat in his loneliness, and long afterward,
though he had determined to remain awake during the night, he fell
asleep with it clasped tightly in his hands.

It was an uneasy, troubled slumber in which the young adventurer's
visions and fears took a more realistic form. He half sat, half lay,
upon his cedar boughs; his head fell forward upon his breast, his feet
were stretched out to the fire. Now and then unintelligible sounds fell
from his lips, and he would start suddenly as if about to awaken, but
each time would sink back into his restless sleep, still clutching the
gun.

The visions in his head began to take a more definite form. Once more he
was on the trail, and had come to the old cabin. But this time he was
alone. The window of the cabin was wide open, but the door was tightly
closed, just as the hunters had found it when they first came down into
the dip. He approached cautiously. When very near the window he heard
sounds--strange sounds--like the clicking of bones!

Step by step in his drea