shed the four chums. They stared as
though they found it difficult to believe their eyes.

"Gee whiz! what next?" Bluff was muttering, as though things were
happening so rapidly that almost any sort of surprise could be
expected.

Frank pushed forward.

"Glad to see you here, but what's up, Gilbert?" he asked.

"Please speak in a whisper when you have to talk, Frank," replied the
other.

"All right," said Frank, doing as he was told, "but please explain
what it all means, for we've got a wounded man outside, who had his
leg broken by a tree he was dropping, and we wish to bring him in here
to make him easy."

"It'll all be over in a short time, I should think," continued
Gilbert; "for he ought to be here any minute now."

"Who do you mean?" asked Bluff, like most boys caring naught for
grammatical rules when far away from the school room.

"My uncle!" replied Gilbert.

"But why under the sun is Mr. Dennison coming down here to the cabin,
and at midnight, too?" asked Jerry.

"That's just it," replied the visitor at the cabin. "I've known for
some time that Uncle Aaron is a sleep-walker, you see."

Frank had already grasped the meaning of the situation, but Bluff was
still groping in the dark. He proved this by asking:

"But what would your old uncle wander down here for in his sleep,
Gilbert, when it must be all of half a mile anyway, and over a crooked
trail?"

"I'll tell you what I think," replied the other, in a very low tone.
"You see, he understands that I set great store on that gold cup I
won, and which I brought up here with me when I came. He had it on his
mind after I went away, being afraid some one would steal it."

"Oh! now I get what you mean," whispered Bluff. "In his sleep he took
a notion to try to hide the thing where no one would find it. And
since he used that cavity under the floor to keep his savings in long
years ago, somehow he just wandered down here the one night we were
all away, and put the cup there."

"Yes, and knew nothing about it when he came to search the cabin later
on," explained Gilbert. "But keep still, everybody, for I really think
I saw him coming out there in the open before the door. Please don't
say a word, but just watch!"

CHAPTER XXV

CONCLUSION

It was an exciting time when Gilbert and the four chums stood there as
silent as ghosts, and waited for the arrival of the sleep-walker.
Perhaps a dozen seconds had passed when there was a rustle and