last when it
could do no more, and he rode on at that steady walk, sleeping
profoundly, so deeply that he did not know when the mustang suddenly
stopped short as if in doubt, and stood with ears pointed forward
sniffing at the stones beneath its hoofs, wrested them to the right and
again to the left, as if there was some taint in the air. Then the
doubt increased, and it bore to the right, stopped, bore to the left
again, sniffed more loudly, lowered its head and sniffed again, uttered
a low sigh, and resumed its steady walk, on and on, for how long Chris
never knew, but hours had passed and he was back again in the square
hole which Griggs termed a trap, listening to what he said about the
stones which covered the bottom while he made the soft glow of the
lanthorn play before his eyes.

Then all at once the dream gave place to the real, and Chris was
half-conscious.

It took some moments before he realised that he was gripping a saddle
with stiffening knees and riding forward, and he couldn't tell why. At
last, though, a mist seemed to fade away from his thinking powers, and
he knew what it all meant. He was riding, and he had been to sleep.

But why? What for?

The answer to those questions came in due course, and he sighed with
weariness.

"Oh dear," he muttered, "I wonder how far it is now. Nearly as far as
before," he thought, for he couldn't have been asleep more than a
minute.

Then for another minute he was confused upon looking at the soft faint
glow of the lanthorn held by Griggs in the trap.

"What nonsense!" he said peevishly. "How muddled my head is. But
that's a light over there. Why!--I say!--Oh!"

His whole feelings changed as he uttered those interjections, and the
tones of his voice were as if the words were positive, comparative, and
superlative.

"We must be close to the valley," he thought. "The Indians can't have
come, and father has had a camp-fire kept up as a guide for me, and I'll
be bound to say there'll be something cooking, because he'll think of
how hungry I shall be.

"There's a good old dad," he said to himself, beginning to feel bright
and happy now, and as invigorated as if he had partaken of refreshment.

"Well, I am glad, and I am hungry, and I'll say so too. I don't care if
old Ned sneers when I say I am, and tells me that I'm worse than he is.
Oh, hooray! You good old mustang! You're the best pony that ever
lived, and I love you as much as a fellow can lo