days which he had spent in the forest
his face had grown perceptibly thinner, and his strength had certainly
diminished. Even the reckless look of defiant joviality, which was one
of the boy's chief characteristics, had given place to a restless
anxiety that prevented his seeing humour in anything, and induced a
feeling of impatience when a joke chanced irresistibly to bubble up in
his mind. He was once again reduced almost to the weeping point, but
his sensations were somewhat different for, when he had stood gazing at
the wreck of Bevan's home, the nether lip had trembled because of the
sorrows of friends, whereas now he was sorrowing because of an exhausted
nature, a weakened heart, and a sinking spirit. But the spirit had not
yet utterly given way!

"Come!" he cried, starting up. "This won't do, Tolly. Be a man! Why,
only think--you have got over two days and two nights. That was the
time allowed you by Paul, so your journey's all but done--must be. Of
course those brutes--forgive me, pony, _that_ brute, I mean--has made me
go much slower than if I had come on my own legs, but notwithstanding,
it cannot be--hallo! what's that!"

The exclamation had reference to a small dark object which lay a few
yards from the spot on which he sat. He ran and picked it up. It was
Tom Brixton's cap--with his name rudely written on the lining. Beside
it lay a piece of bark on which was pencil-writing.

With eager, anxious haste the boy began to peruse it, but he was
unaccustomed to read handwriting, and when poor Tom had pencilled the
lines his hand was weak and his brain confused, so that the characters
were doubly difficult to decipher. After much and prolonged effort the
boy made out the beginning. It ran thus:

"This is probably the last letter that I, Tom Brixton, shall ever write.
(I put down my name now, in case I never finish it.) O dearest
mother!--"

Emotion had no doubt rendered the hand less steady at this point, for
here the words were quite illegible--at least to little Trevor--who
finally gave up the attempt in despair. The effect of this discovery,
however, was to send the young blood coursing wildly through the veins,
so that a great measure of strength returned, as if by magic.

The boy's first care was naturally to look for traces of the lost man,
and he set about this with a dull fear at his heart, lest at any moment
he should come upon the dead body of his friend. In a few minutes he
discov