osened the earth around it the clay and bushes
that kep' it in place. So it got kind o' top-heavy, and came slumping
and pitching down, slow at first, and then a'most as quick as a
cannon-ball, bringing all that pile along with it. I've seen the like
before; but, sho! I never came so near being buried by it."

He pointed as he spoke to the late camping-ground, with its lodgment of
clay, sods, pygmy trees, and pieces of rock, big and little.

[Illustration: "HERB CHARGED THROUGH THE CHOKING DUST-CLOUDS.]

"The old camp's clean wiped out, boys," he said; "and I guess one of the
men that built it is gone, or a'most gone, too. Stick your arm under
his head, Cyrus, while I hunt for some water."

Garst did as he was bidden, but his help was not needed long. The guide
went off like a racer, covering the ground at a stretching gallop. He
remembered well the clear Katahdin spring, which had supplied the
home-camp during that long-past trapping winter. He returned with his
tin mug full.

When the ice-cold drops touched Chris's forehead, and lay on his parted
lips, gem-like drops which he was past swallowing, his malformed eyes
slowly opened. There was intelligence in them, shining through the
gathering death-film, like a sinking light in a lantern.

He was groping in the dim border-land now, and in it he recognized his
old partner with shadowy wonder; for delirium was past, with the other
storms of a storm-beaten life.

"Herb," he gurgled in snatches, the words being half heard, half guessed
at, "'twas I--took 'em--the skins--an' the antlers. I wanted--to get--to
the ole camp--an' let you--take it out o' me--afore I--keeled over."

Herb had taken Cyrus's place, and was upholding him with a tenderness
which showed that the guide's heart was in this hour melted to a jelly.
Two tears were dammed up inside his eyelids, which were so unused to
tears that they held them in. He neither wiped nor winked them away
before he answered:--

"Don't you fret about that--poor kid. We'll chuck that old business
clean out o' mind. You've jest got to suck this water and try to chipper
up, and--we'll make camp together again."

But Herb knew as well as he knew anything that the man who had robbed
him was long past "chippering up," and was starting alone to the unseen
camping-grounds.

"How long since you got back here?" he' asked, close to the dulling ear.

"Couldn't--keep--track--o' days. Got--turned--round--in woods.
Lost--trail--hea