believed were being sent forth
as a message in the Morse code.

Rube held his breath and listened; but all that he heard now to break
the silence of the vast desolation was the weird howl of some far away
koshinee--the dreaded buffalo wolf of the prairies.

When the rain had ceased, and the black mountain peaks could be seen
against the lesser blackness of the sky, he still thought it prudent to
remain where he was.

One of the last things that Kiddie had said to him was: "Be careful.
Don't hurry; don't worry," and, rather than risk a climb up the wet and
slippery rocks, he again curled himself up and closed his eyes in sleep.

The red dawn was breaking when he awoke shivering with cold. His
buckskin clothes were wet and clammy, and his limbs were stiff.

He sat up and looked about him.

The two eagles had returned and were exactly as he had seen them at
first, the male keeping sentry on the point of rock above his nested
mate. The mountain torrents still babbled. On the farther side of the
canyon was a beautiful waterfall as white as chalk against the indigo
darkness of the cliff down which it leapt into the unseen depths. The
jagged shapes of the mountains were now exceedingly clear, showing alp
above alp into the far blue distance.

Rube was excessively hungry. And there was nothing for him to eat,
unless indeed he had chosen to make a meal of a fragment of rabbit
flesh that had fallen from the eagles' nest.

"Wonder what Kiddie's havin' for breakfast!" he said to himself
longingly. "Fried kidney, I expect, outer that stag he shot. Guess
he'll be worryin' some 'bout my not bein' back in camp yet. I'd best
quit an' get back right away. No; I ain't goin' back the way I come.
I'm figurin' as th' easiest an' safest way's ter climb up higher an'
then make tracks across Lone Wolf Mountain an' down to the lake.
That's what Kiddie'd do, I reckon."

He looked upward, calculating his direction. Before he moved away he
picked up his eagle plumes. He had been lying on them; their
feathering was ruffled and their quills were fractured. Still, they
were worth preserving as trophies of his adventure.

The ascent of the cliff was not difficult, though at first he made two
or three awkward slips on the wet moss and lichen. After a while the
climbing became quite easy, and he reached the rounded shoulder of Lone
Wolf Mountain without difficulty. Here, however--as Kiddie afterwards
discovered--he was obliged