s were seated.

"Better lie down, my lads; you'll keep warmer. There's a chilly wind
coming down from the mountains with a bite of frost in it."

"Very well, then:--there!" said Chris peevishly.

Griggs did not speak then, but stood with his rifle-butt upon the ground
and his hands resting on the muzzle for a few minutes, before he began
to shake.

But it was not from cold. It was with perfectly silent mirth, as he
said to himself--

"I honestly believe that they were both asleep as soon as their heads
touched the ground."

Then after a pause, during which he had been slowly and watchfully
gazing about him in every direction, his thoughts came back to the
sleepers at his feet.

"I like that," he thought, "for it was all real and plucky and true.
Not a bit of sham in it. He meant it all, and he meant to go to his
father when it was time for me to call him in nearly four hours' time.
But nature's too strong for him. He won't wake up, and I shan't rouse
him. It will be the doctor who does that."

It was the doctor, and directly after--at least, so it seemed to Chris,
who opened his eyes to stare at his father, and then at the fire
crackling and smoking in a sheltered spot among the nearest bushes and
trees.

"Why, it's to-morrow morning," cried the boy excitedly.

"Ah, that's what you ought to have said last night, my boy," said the
doctor, laughing, as he pressed Ned's side with his toe. "Come, Ned,
lad: breakfast."

Ned sprang up as sharply as if he had been kicked.

"Eh? What?" he cried.--"Oh! We've been to sleep."

"Of course you have," said the doctor. "You lay down to sleep, didn't
you?"

"No, father; we lay down to keep awake till it was time to call you,"
cried Chris.

"Ah, yes, I know. Griggs told me; but you didn't keep awake. Now then,
go and have a wash, and then come and help me do some cooking. Be
sharp."

"One moment, father. Have you heard or seen any Indians?"

"No, not one. And look here; you'll be attending to the fire when you
come back; don't make it up with green wood, but pick up the pieces of
the dry and dead. I don't want more smoke than we can possibly help to
be rising up above the trees. Now: off!"

There was water near at hand, but no time to undress for a swim, and the
boys were soon back, with the stiffness produced by the previous day's
exertion dying out before the bright buoyancy produced by a sound sleep
in the beautiful cool, elastic air, while th