And there stood Tom, holding the memorial of Hervey's heroism in his
hand. Hervey had apparently forgotten all about it....




CHAPTER XII

AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT


Hervey picked his way among the rocks, looking here and there in the
crevices and upon the intervening ground as if he had lost something. A
more random quest could scarcely be imagined. Tom watched him for a few
minutes, then took the shorter way to camp with his little charge.

Hervey followed the rocky ledge for about fifty yards to a point where
the dry bed of a stream came winding down out of the mountain. It ran in
a tiny canyon between two rocks and so out upon the level fields to the
south where the camp lay.

The twilight was well advanced now, the last vivid patches were mellowed
into a pervading gray, which seemed to cover the rocks and woods like a
mantle. Clad in this somber robe, the wooded height which rose to the
north seemed the more forbidding. Not a sound was to be heard but the
voice of a whip-poor-will somewhere. Even Hervey's buoyant nature was
subdued by the solemn stillness.

Suddenly something between the two rocks caught his eye. The caked earth