s of the day and night, they, too, dropped off to sleep,
to the tune of old Ephraim's snores.

CHAPTER VII

UNWELCOME VISITORS

While gathered about the breakfast table--if table, it could be
called--the next morning, the campers heard the boy's story. Len
Haley had by this time thoroughly recovered from his fright, and he
related in a timid, halting fashion how he had come to be alone on
the mountain in the dead of night.

An orphan, living with his uncle, James Haley, near the little
village of Armsdale in the valley, he had worked for years in a truck
garden. Neither James Haley or his wife had experienced any affection
for the lad, but seemed bent only upon making him carry on his young
shoulders the burden of running their little farm.

Len, a willing worker, had accepted his lot as a matter of course.
But when the hours grew longer, and he was forced to rise before
daylight to milk the cows and feed the horses, and was not allowed to
retire until the same services had been performed late at night, with
hours of drudgery in the field, during the intervening time, he had
rebelled, only to be soundly beaten by his uncle, and told to return
to his work under the penalty of being beaten till he was black and
blue.

The boy had stood this as long as he could. Then he resolved to run
away. He kept this purpose to himself, however, waiting for the
proper opportunity to present itself.

The previous night James Haley had gone to the village about eight
o'clock. Mrs. Haley was feeling badly, and it was necessary to fill a
prescription at the drug store. Why Len was not selected for this
mission he could not imagine, for usually his uncle took a keen
delight in rousing him out of bed at all hours of the night.

It had seemed to the boy to be an omen in his favor. James Haley
apparently believed him to be asleep at the time of his departure for
the village. The boy had really gone to bed, but lay there thoroughly
dressed. Soon after his uncle left the farm, the boy had crept softly
down the stairs in his stocking feet, then out of the house. Putting
on his shoes out by the barn he had immediately struck out for the
mountains, not realizing what a terrible thing it was for a boy to be
alone in the woods in the night time.

When finally this realization was brought home to him, he became
frightened. But he gritted his teeth, resolved not to turn back. He
knew full well that the beatings he had received in th