While it was still daylight he gathered plenty of good firewood, for he realized that having no blanket or poncho he would need to keep up a brisk fire and to sleep as near it as possible.  Fortunately, another rock adjoining the fireplace afforded shelter against the cool night wind.

The next thing to consider was his bed.  The ground was damp in places, but if he used leaves for a bed they might take fire and burn him while he slept.  So he built another fire in a sort of hollow at the base of the fourth rock, and after about an hour—–­during which the squirrel was broiling deliciously—–­he raked away all the hot ashes, and curled up on the dried warm ground.  This proved to be a fairly comfortable bed and, after eating his nicely browned supper, and bathing his ankle again, he replenished the fire, taking care that it should not spread, and lay down beside the sheltering rock.

Twilight deepened into darkness, the stars appeared one by one in the vast black dome above him, the forest was deathly still save for the noise of the waterfall which drowned all other sounds.  Once, an owl, attracted by the fire, perched on a low overhanging branch and stared into the flames with great blinking yellow eyes; then, startled by an uneasy movement of the sleeper, it flew away with a dismal hoot.

Ralph’s dreams were troubled, a medley of combats with feathered foes, of lengthy altercations with Bill Terrill, of frantic digging in the ground for impossible gold.  Twice he was wakened by twinges of pain, and he lay there, open-eyed, gazing up through the branches of the stars.

“There’s the Pole star and the Pointers,” he murmured, to divert his mind from his suffering.  “Of course, the Pointers go around the North star once in twenty-four hours, so that makes a kind of clock.  I could find my way home by those stars if I had to, but I can’t walk, I can’t walk!”

His voice trailed off into silence, and he fell asleep once more.  Presently he was wakened, for a third time, by a man’s voice calling his name.  Or was this only another dream?  He sat up and listened intently.  The call sounded from some point back on the trail, and there could be no mistaking its reality; it was loud, gruff, yet kindly.

“Ralph!  Oh-o, Ralph!  Where are you, lad?”

Then came a tremendous clatter of loose stones and a crashing in the undergrowth.

The lone camper, benighted and forlorn, peered around him on all sides.  At first he could see nothing beyond the glow of his own fire, which intensified the weird shadows of the forest; but he could hear the shouts and the ringing tramp of a horse’s hoofs on the stony ground.  He raised his voice in answer to the call.

“This way!  Ki-i-o!  Here I am!” he yelled excitedly.  “Is that you, Tom?”

In a minute or two, as his eyes became accustomed to the pitch darkness beyond the firelight, he beheld the flicker of a lantern shining among the tree-trunks.  Simultaneously, he heard the snorting of a startled horse.  He stood up, leaning against his rock, and gave a peculiar throaty call that ended in the name “Ke-ee-no-o”—–­and then, to his delight, the intelligent old horse responded with a loud whinny of recognition.