sy hound; why did you let him make that noise? I shall never
get it out of my head again, if I live till a hundred. Let's get out of
this place before I go mad; I could not stay in the house with it for
salvation. Get his horse, and come along."

They got the two horses, and rode away into the night; but Hawker, in
his nervous anxiety to get away, dropped a handsome cavalry pistol,--a
circumstance which nearly cost Doctor Mulhaus his life.

They rode till after daylight, taking a course toward the sea, and had
gone nearly twelve miles before George discovered his loss, and broke
out into petulant imprecations.

"I wouldn't have lost that pistol for five pounds," he said; "no, nor
more. I shall never have one like it again. I've put over a parrot at
twenty yards with it."

"Go back and get it, then," said Moody, "if it's so valuable. I'll camp
and wait for you. We want all the arms we can get."

"Not I," said George; "I would not go back into that cursed hut alone
for all the sheep in the country."

"You coward," replied the other; "afraid of a dead man. Well, if you
won't, I will: and, mind, I shall keep it for my own use."

"You're welcome to it, if you like to get it," said George. And so
Moody rode back.

Chapter XXXVIII

HOW DR. MULHAUS GOT BUSHED IN THE RANGES, AND WHAT BEFEL HIM THERE.

I must recur to the same eventful night again, and relate another
circumstance that occurred on it. As events thicken, time gets more
precious; so that, whereas at first I thought nothing of giving you the
events of twenty years or so in a chapter, we are now compelled to
concentrate time so much that it takes three chapters to twenty-four
hours. I read a long novel once, the incidents of which did not extend
over thirty-six hours, and yet it was not so profoundly stupid as you
would suppose.

All the party got safe home from the picnic, and were glad enough to
get housed out of the frosty air. The Doctor, above all others, was
rampant at the thoughts of dinner, and a good chat over a warm fire,
and burst out, in a noble bass voice, with an old German student's song
about wine and Gretchen, and what not.

His music was soon turned into mourning; for, as they rode into the
courtyard, a man came up to Captain Brentwood, and began talking
eagerly to him.

It was one of his shepherds, who lived alone with his wife towards the
mountain. The poor woman, his wife, he said, was taken in labour that
morning, and was