thin the succeeding ten minutes he caught
sight of a young deer among the trees less than one hundred feet in
advance. It bounded off affrighted by the figure of the youth, who,
however, was so nigh that he brought it to the ground without
difficulty.

When he ran forward to dress it, he was surprised to find it had fallen
within a rod of a ravine fifty feet deep.

This ravine, which had evidently been a canyon or ancient bed of some
mountain stream, was twenty yards or more in width, the rocky walls
being covered with a mass of luxuriant, creeping vines, through which
the gray of the rocks could be seen only at widely separated intervals.
The bottom was piled up with the luxuriant vegetable growth of a soil
surcharged with richness.

Jack Carleton took only time enough to comprehend these points when he
set to work kindling a fire against the trunk of a tree which grew close
to the ravine. When that was fairly going, he cut the choicest slices
from his game, and it was speedily broiled over the blaze. There was no
water, so far as he knew, closer than the creek, but he did not
specially miss it. Seasoned by his keen hunger, the venison was the very
acme of deliciousness, and he ate until he craved no more.

Then as he sat down on the leaves with his back to the tree opposite the
blaze, he probably felt as comfortable as one in his situation could
feel. He had pushed his strength almost to a dangerous verge, when rest
became a luxury, and as he leaned against the shaggy bark behind him, it
seemed as though he could sit thus for many hours without wishing to
stir a limb.

"I suppose," he said to himself in a drowsy tone, "that I ought to keep
on the tramp until night, when I can crawl in behind some log and sleep
till morning. It may be that one or two of the warriors from that last
village are on my trail, but it don't look like it, and a fellow can't
tramp forever without rest. I'll stop here for an hour or two, and then
go ahead until dark. There's one thing certain,--I've thrown Ogallah and
his friends so far off my track that they'll never be able to find it
again."

If any conclusion could be warranted, it would seem that this was of
that nature, and yet by an extraordinary chain of circumstances the very
danger which was supposed to have ended, was the one which came upon the
fugitive.

As he had anticipated, the method of his flight was discovered very
early the succeeding morning, and many of the warrio