hope that you would
overtake us, and having waited here as long as we dared, were just
about to retrace our course in search of you."

"Yes indeed," added Donald, readily taking the cue from his friend; "we
have been so distressed at your non-appearance that we really could not
have waited any longer. Then, too, you know one can so easily exhaust
the resources of a place like this in twenty-four hours."

"Twenty-four hours!" gasped Bullen. "Have you chaps really been here
twenty-four hours?"

"More or less," assented Christie, cheerfully. "But where have you
been lingering all this time? We thought you must have returned to New
York. Oh, I remember! There were attractions at Oswego. Eh, Bullen!
you fickle dog, you?"

"Confound you! I haven't lingered," sputtered the little paymaster,
whose face was rapidly assuming an apoplectic hue.

"Indeed, you have not, paymaster," broke in Major Wilkins, coming to
his rescue, "for, from the Oswego date on this letter, I see you have
broken the record and made the fastest time ever known between here and
there. These chaps only got in a few minutes ahead of you, and I'll
warrant you gave them at least a day's start. How did you manage it?"

"Oh, you villains!" cried the mollified paymaster, shaking his fist at
the laughing subalterns. "Never mind, I'll get even with you!" Then,
to the major, he replied: "I confess I was somewhat impatient to get
here, and so I allowed my crew to work nights as well as in the
daytime. In that way we came through without a stop, save such as were
necessary for the cooking of our meals."

"But I never heard of such a thing!" exclaimed the astonished major.
"It is all I can do to keep Indian crews at work from sunrise to within
an hour of sunset, and they always insist on being in camp before dark.
What inducements did you offer them?"

"None at all," replied the paymaster, calmly. "I just let them have
their own way. They chose to do it. I expect they saw I was in a
hurry and wanted to oblige me."

This was all the information on the subject that could be gleaned from
the paymaster at that time; but as he was now easily persuaded to join
Donald and Christie in remaining at the post over night, the officers
still entertained hopes of extracting his secret. In this they finally
succeeded; for that evening, after the little man had been mellowed by
a capital dinner, he consented to account for the remarkable influence
he had g