mes with great blinking yellow eyes;
then, startled by an uneasy movement of the sleeper, it flew away
with a dismal hoot.

Ralph's dreams were troubled, a medley of combats with feathered
foes, of lengthy altercations with Bill Terrill, of frantic digging
in the ground for impossible gold. Twice he was wakened by twinges
of pain, and he lay there, open-eyed, gazing up through the branches
of the stars.

"There's the Pole star and the Pointers," he murmured, to divert
his mind from his suffering. "Of course, the Pointers go around
the North star once in twenty-four hours, so that makes a kind
of clock. I could find my way home by those stars if I had to,
but I can't walk, I can't walk!"

His voice trailed off into silence, and he fell asleep once more.
Presently he was wakened, for a third time, by a man's voice
calling his name. Or was this only another dream? He sat up
and listened intently. The call sounded from some point back on
the trail, and there could be no mistaking its reality; it was
loud, gruff, yet kindly.

"Ralph! Oh-o, Ralph! Where are you, lad?"

Then came a tremendous clatter of loose stones and a crashing in
the undergrowth.

The lone camper, benighted and forlorn, peered around him on all
sides. At first he could see nothing beyond the glow of his own
fire, which intensified the weird shadows of the forest; but he
could hear the shouts and the ringing tramp of a horse's hoofs
on the stony ground. He raised his voice in answer to the call.

"This way! Ki-i-o! Here I am!" he yelled excitedly. "Is that
you, Tom?"

In a minute or two, as his eyes became accustomed to the pitch
darkness beyond the firelight, he beheld the flicker of a lantern
shining among the tree-trunks. Simultaneously, he heard the snorting
of a startled horse. He stood up, leaning against his rock, and
gave a peculiar throaty call that ended in the name "Ke-ee-no-o"---and
then, to his delight, the intelligent old horse responded with a
loud whinny of recognition.

The next moment three shadowy forms, those of a man on horseback and
two others on foot, detached themselves from the enveloping darkness
and advanced into the light of Ralph's campfire. One of the
unmounted searchers carried a lantern.

They were Tom Walsh,---on Keno,---Jack Durham, and Tom Sherwood.

"What in 'tarnation's the trouble, lad?" demanded Tom, as soon
as the searching party had exchanged greetings with Ralph, fervently
overjoyed