to. Then now for a
good rest. Sleep, boys, and `pay attintion to it,' like Barney
O'Reardon. This moss will feel like feather-beds to-night. My word,
how dark it has grown while we have been talking! Good-night, every
one. I'm half-asleep now."

Five minutes later he was quite, and the rest, saving the watch, were
rapidly following his example, the only sounds heard being the distant
hoot of an owl, the musical trickling of falling water, and the crop,
crop of the grazing beasts.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A NIGHT VISITOR.

Chris Lee's bed that night was a contrivance of his own. It was between
two long pieces of rock, a narrow passage which, after taking the axe to
lop them off, he filled full of aromatic pine branches. These lay close
and were elastic and yielding. Over them he stretched a blanket, upon
which he rolled another piece of rock, which filled up one end of the
narrow passage, and there, snugly protected at head and sides, was the
delightful couch for a wholesomely tired lad, only wanting another
blanket to cover him if he felt chilly, or to be ready to throw off if
he found it warm.

Silence, darkness save for the glittering stars on high, sweet pure air,
and an excellent appetite for sleep, there was all he could desire, and
after laying his rifle and revolver ready and lifting his
cartridge-pouch and hunting-knife a little over the rocks to prevent
them from making dents in his sides, he said good-night to those near,
let his head sink down, gazed for a few minutes at a brilliant star in
the zenith which his father had told him was Aldebaran--one which he
recollected well from its unscientific name--the Bull's-eye, he closed
his own and began dreaming at once, but not pleasantly. The fact was
that he had eaten a very hearty supper and lain down to sleep very soon
afterwards, two rather foolish things to do if a calm and restful sleep
be sought.

Chris did not know why it was--the doctor told him afterwards--but he
began to dream soon afterwards of rattlesnakes. Not of such as he had
seen on the rocky slope, the largest of which did not exceed six feet in
length, but of dreamland rattlesnakes, monsters of twenty feet long, and
with bony tails which kept up a constant whirr previous to their owners
striking at that which they meant to destroy.

It was evident in the dream that they did not mean to destroy him, for
though they hovered over him with their heads playing up and down upon