's heroism in his
hand. Hervey had apparently forgotten all about it....

CHAPTER XII

AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT

Hervey picked his way among the rocks, looking here and there in the
crevices and upon the intervening ground as if he had lost something. A
more random quest could scarcely be imagined. Tom watched him for a few
minutes, then took the shorter way to camp with his little charge.

Hervey followed the rocky ledge for about fifty yards to a point where
the dry bed of a stream came winding down out of the mountain. It ran in
a tiny canyon between two rocks and so out upon the level fields to the
south where the camp lay.

The twilight was well advanced now, the last vivid patches were mellowed
into a pervading gray, which seemed to cover the rocks and woods like a
mantle. Clad in this somber robe, the wooded height which rose to the
north seemed the more forbidding. Not a sound was to be heard but the
voice of a whip-poor-will somewhere. Even Hervey's buoyant nature was
subdued by the solemn stillness.

Suddenly something between the two rocks caught his eye. The caked earth
looked as if a narrow board had been drawn over it. Bordering this broad
line, about half an inch from it on either side, were two narrow fancy
lines--or at least that is what Hervey called them. Examining these
carefully, he saw that they were made up of tiny, diagonal lines. In the
place where this ran between the rocks, in the deep shadow, these
singular marks were surprisingly legible, and bore not a little the
appearance of a border design. The big stones formed a sort of shadow
box, causing the markings to appear in bold relief.

Hervey knew nothing of the freakish influence of light on tracks and
trails, but he saw here something which he knew had been made by a
moving object. The continuous design was so nearly perfect that it
seemed like the work of human beings, but Hervey knew that it could
hardly be this.

What, then, was it?

Where the lines emerged from between the rocks the marking was less
regular and less clear, but plain enough in the damp, crusted earth
which covered the mud in the old stream bed.

With heart bounding with joy and elation, Hervey followed the bed of the
stream. The tracks, or whatever they were, were so clear that he could
keep to the side of the muddy area and still see them.

It was characteristic of him that having made this great discovery, he
did not trouble himself about the directi