slept. He almost cried out with the pain of it, and as he moved a
little to shift his body from it, the wound hurt worse than ever.

The lad was still surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. It all
came back to him--but standing out stronger than all the rest was
the fact that he was lost.

"Wonder how long I've slept," he muttered. "Seems as if I had been
here a year. Lucky I awoke or I'd been stuck fast on that rock, for
good and all. Whew! B-r-r-r! I think it's going to snow. Thought it
was going to rain just before I went to sleep. Wonder if they have
snow up here in the summer time. Have almost everything else,"
continued the lad, muttering to himself, half under his breath.

Slowly rising he shook himself vigorously and rubbed his palms
together to get his circulation stirred up.

"Hello, what's that? I remember now, I smelled smoke or thought I
did."

Tad sniffed the chill air suspiciously.

"It is smoke," he decided. "Maybe I've set the woods on fire with my
matches. Guess I'll climb down and investigate."

He started to move down the side of the ledge when it occurred to
him that perhaps it would be better to investigate from where he
was; he did not know what danger he might be running into if he were
to climb down without first having made sure that it was perfectly
safe to do so. Just what he might meet with he did not know. But he