remains of the plank
bridge with some difficulty, he stood before the hideous wreck of his
friend's late home, where he had spent so many glad hours listening to
marvellous adventures from Paul Bevan, or learning how to read and
cipher, as well as drinking in wisdom generally, from the Rose of
Oregon.

It was an awful collapse. A yawning gulf had been driven into the
earth, and the hut--originally a solid structure--having been hurled
bodily skyward, shattered to atoms, and inextricably mixed in its parts,
had come down again into the gulf as into a ready-made grave.

It would be vain to search for any sort of letter, sign, or
communication from his friends among the _debris_. Tolly felt that at
once, yet he could not think of leaving without a search. After one
deep and prolonged sigh he threw off his lethargy, and began a close
inspection of the surroundings.

"You see," he muttered to himself, as he moved quickly yet stealthily
about, "they'd never have gone off without leavin' some scrap of
information for me, to tell me which way they'd gone, even though they'd
gone off in a lightnin' hurry. But p'raps they didn't. The reptiles
may have comed on 'em unawares, an' left 'em no time to do anything. Of
_course_ they can't have killed 'em. Nobody ever could catch Paul Bevan
asleep--no, not the sharpest redskin in the land. That's quite out o'
the question."

Though out of the question, however, the bare thought of such a
catastrophe caused little Trevor's under lip to tremble, a mist to
obscure his vision, and a something-or-other to fill his throat, which
he had to swallow with a gulp. Moreover, he went back to the ruined hut
and began to pull about the wreck with a fluttering heart, lest he
should come on some evidence that his friends had been murdered. Then
he went to the highest part of the rock to rest a little, and consider
what had best be done next.

While seated there, gazing on the scene of silent desolation, which the
pale moonlight rendered more ghastly, the poor boy's spirit failed him a
little. He buried his face in his hands and burst into tears.

Soon this weakness, as he deemed it, passed away. He dried his eyes,
roughly, and rose to resume his search, and it is more than probable
that he would ere long have bethought him of the cave where Betty had
left her note, if his attention had not been suddenly arrested by a
faint glimmer of ruddy light in a distant part of the forest. The