the sleeper and touched his face.

"Wake up, Prince Bismarck," he said, in a commanding tone.

The other opened his eyes, stared and then smiled amiably, saying:

"Oh! it's you, is it, general? Fate is against me again. I yield myself a
prisoner of war. You can fasten my hands if you wish, but I have dined
well for one day."

CHAPTER XIX

SURPRISING TRAPPER JESSE

Mr. Smithson had carried his prisoner off, after he, too, had partaken of
the hospitality of Kamp Kill Kare.

"Boys," he said, in leaving, "I'm sure under obligations to you for all
this, and any time I can repay the debt don't hesitate to ask me. To get
Bismarck back safe and sound after such a storm, is going to be a feather
in my cap. And only for you I'd be hunting him yet, with only a slim
chance of success."

"Why, that's all right, Mr. Smithson," Frank had declared heartily;
"we've enjoyed helping you, though it does make a fellow feel bad to see
as clever a man as that laboring under such a ridiculous fancy."

"He was once a professor in a college, and lost his mind through
overstudy," remarked the keeper, as he moved off, with "Bismarck"
at his side.

"There, see that!" exclaimed Bluff, triumphantly. "Just what I've told
my dad many a time when he complained that I was falling behind my class.
I'll make certain to hold this up as an awful warning."

"Talk to me about you losing your brain by overstudy! There's about as
much chance of that as my being made king of England," laughed Jerry.

"But still it _has_ happened, you see. That establishes a precedent all
right, and my father, as a lawyer, is always talking about such things,"
declared Bluff, not in the least abashed.

"Now suppose you sit right down here, Jerry, and let us have the whole
yarn from Alpha to Omega. What you haven't been through since you left us
yesterday morning isn't worth mentioning, to judge from the hints you let
fall. A deer, four wild dogs, lost in the big timber, storm bound,
rescuing our most bitter enemy; and now helping to land an escaped
lunatic--say, you ought to feel satisfied, old fellow," observed Frank.

Jerry laughed aloud.

All his recent troubles, as viewed from the pleasant seat by the
campfire, with his three chums around him, seemed to fade into
insignificance.

"Well, I reckon I am. There was a bear, too," he said, nodding.

"What! a bear--you ran across a bear?" ejaculated Will, drawing in a big
breath and shaking this head as