“Good gracious!  Listen to that, Joe!  What’s up now?  Another fellow lost in the woods?  Somebody is firing a round with his rifle!  Perhaps he wants help.  Those are signal shots, anyhow!”

The camper whose horn had been Dol’s signal of deliverance, broke off abruptly in his introductions, just as he had arrived at the most interesting point, and was proclaiming his own identity.  He rattled off his short exclamations in excitement, and dashed out of the cabin, followed by Joe, his nephews, and Dol, the latter limping painfully, for his feet now felt like hot-water bags.

“That Winchester has spoken eight or ten times,” said the leader, counting the shots fired by somebody away in the dark recesses of the forest from a powerful repeating-rifle.  “Let’s give the fellow, whoever he is, an answer, Joe!”

He seized his own rifle hastily, loaded the magazine with blank cartridges, and fired a noisy salute.

In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen, the sound of a shrill, distant “Coo-hoo!” the woodsman’s hail, reached them from the forest.

Joe instantly responded with a vehement “Coo-hoo!  Coo-hoo-oo!” the first call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar which showed the strength of the guide’s lungs,—­a roar that might carry for miles.

Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some undergrowth near the edge of the forest.  A man bounded forth from the pitch-black shadows into the clearing, where a little daylight still lingered.  As he approached the group, Dol, who was in the background, gave a startled, yearning cry; but it was drowned in a loud burst from his host.

“Why, Cyrus Garst!” exclaimed the latter, peering into the new-comer’s face.  “How goes it, man?  I never expected to see you here.  Surely you haven’t come to grief in the woods?  You look scared to death!”

Cyrus—­for it was he—­grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of this camp extended to him.  But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting the other’s.  They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions restlessly, like search-lights.

“I’m glad to see you, Doc,” he said.  “I didn’t know you were anywhere near.  But I’m half distracted just now.  A youngster belonging to our camp is missing.  I’ve been scouring the forest for hours, and firing signals, hoping he might hear them.  But”—­

Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him.  The Harvard student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows.  In the dusk their eyes were near together; Garst’s were stern, Dol’s blinking and unsteady.

“Adolphus Farrar,” began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an arrest, “have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while your brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs?  What unheard-of folly possessed you to go off by yourself?”