another view all the time I was up here I'd feel it paid
me to come; but I've got a few more cards up my sleeve to play. That
flashlight business is going to pan out just great, I can see. Now to
head for home. I can imagine how the boys' eyes will stare when I tell
them what I've been up against, and prove it with that picture."

CHAPTER XIII

HOW "DADDY" CAME BACK

In order to see more of the country Phil took a notion to change his
course while heading for the home camp. This turned out to be another of
those little things that occasionally happen by accident, but which
afterwards seem to have been inspired.

He had not been walking along more than ten or twelve minutes before he
came to a sudden pause.

"What under the sun could that have been," he asked himself, listening
intently; "sounded as near like a regular groan as anything could be."

Ridiculous as it might seem, Phil even thought of the suffering moose,
and wondered whether the distressed animal could have taken shelter in
that thick copse, to moan with pain. Then again he heard the strange
sound.

"It must be some one's lying there, and in pain!" Phil observed, though
the idea gave him a thrill of apprehension.

He stepped closer, and when for the third time the same type of noise
welled out of the bushes he made bold to call:

"Who's there? Do you need any help?"

There was a rustling sound. Then the bushes parted, and he saw a man's
face peering at him. Phil could not remember ever having seen that face
before, and yet it struck him that he ought to be able to give a good
guess who the other was going to turn out to be. He had Mazie in his
mind just then; her "daddy" was the only man known to be around that
neighborhood.

The other beckoned to him, and as Phil approached he went on to say, in
a voice that was half muffled, both with pain and anxiety:

"Oh! I'm glad that you've come, boy. My leg is broken, and I've got to
the point where I can't seem to drag myself another yard. I'm hungry
too, and crazy for a drink of water. But I was just making up my mind I
might as well give up, and be done with it; because if she's dead
there's no use of my living!"

That settled one thing in Phil's mind. The man was Mazie's father.
Already the boy could see that he did not have the look of a villain.
Pain and want had made deep lines on his face, but somehow Phil believed
the other was all right.

He could easily imagine what the father mu