"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