robbers were stirring up their fires, and sending a tell-tale glow into
the sky.

"O-ho!" exclaimed Tolly Trevor.

He said nothing more, but there was a depth of meaning in the tone and
look accompanying that "O-ho!" which baffles description.

Tightening his belt, he at once glided down the slope, flitted across
the rivulet, skimmed over the open space, and melted into the forest
after the most approved method of Red Indian tactics.

The expedition from which he had just returned having been peaceful,
little Trevor carried no warlike weapons--for the long bowie-knife at
his side, and the little hatchet stuck in his girdle, were, so to speak,
merely domestic implements, without which he never moved abroad. But as
war was not his object, the want of rifle and revolver mattered little.
He soon reached the neighbourhood of the robbers' fire, and, when close
enough to render extreme caution necessary, threw himself flat on the
ground and advanced a la "snake-in-the-grass."

Presently he came within earshot, and listened attentively, though
without much interest, to a deal of boastful small talk with which the
marauders beguiled the time, while they fumigated their mouths and noses
preparatory to turning in for the night.

At last the name of Paul Bevan smote his ear, causing it,
metaphorically, to go on full cock.

"I'm sartin sure," said one of the speakers, "that the old screw has
gone right away to Simpson's Gully."

"If I thought that, I'd follow him up, and make a dash at the Gully
itself," said Stalker, plucking a burning stick from the fire to
rekindle his pipe.

"If you did you'd get wopped," remarked Goff, with a touch of sarcasm,
for the lieutenant of the band was not so respectful to his commander as
a well-disciplined man should be.

"What makes you think so?" demanded the chief.

"The fact that the diggers are a sight too many for us," returned Goff.
"Why, we'd find 'em three to one, if not four."

"Well, that, coupled with the uncertainty of his having gone to
Simpson's Gully," said the chief, "decides me to make tracks down south
to the big woods on the slopes of the Sawback Hills. There are plenty
of parties travelling thereabouts with lots of gold, boys, and
difficulties enough in the way of hunting us out o' the stronghold.
I'll leave you there for a short time and make a private excursion to
Simpson's Gully, to see if my enemy an' the beautiful Betty are there."

"An' get yourself shot