imagination, all the diamonds that ever decked
the brow of Wealth or Beauty! When at last we slept, our dreams partook
of the same glittering ideas--coupled, of course, with much of the
monstrous absurdity to which dreams are liable. I had just discovered a
gem which was so large that I experienced the utmost difficulty in
thrusting it into my coat-pocket, and was busy shovelling small diamonds
of the purest water into a wheelbarrow, when a tremendous whack on my
nose awoke me.

Starting up with an indignant gasp I found that it was a lump of snow,
which had been detached by the heat of our fire from a branch overhead.

"What's wrong, Max?" growled my companion, who lay curled up in his
buffalo robe, like a huge Newfoundland dog. "Bin dreamin'?"

"Yes," said I, with a loud yawn, "I was dreaming of shovelling up
diamonds by the thousand when a lump of snow fell and hit my nose!"

"Str'nge," sighed Lumley, in the sleepiest voice I ever heard, "so's I--
dr'm'n 'f g'ld'n sass-gs an' dm'nd rupple-ply."

"What nonsense are you talking, man? What were you dreaming of?"

"'F gold'n saus'ges an' dim'nd rolly-p'ly. I say--'s fire out?"

"Nearly."

"'S very cold. G't up--mend it, l'ke good f'llow. I'll help you,
d'rectly."

He finished off with a prolonged snore, so I rose with a slight laugh,
mended the fire, warmed myself well, observed in a sleepy way that the
night was still bright and calm, and then lay down in a state of
semi-consciousness to drop at once into a nest made of golden filigree
filled with diamond eggs!

Next morning we rose at daybreak, relighted the fire and had breakfast,
after which we resumed our search, but still--without success.

"I fear that my surmise as to the state of poor Liston's mind is
correct," said Lumley. "We have searched the whole valley, I believe."

"Nay, not quite," I returned, "it is much varied in form, and full of
out-o'-the-way nooks. Besides, we have not yet discovered the stunted
pine, and you know the paper says the spot is difficult to find. As to
Liston's mind I feel quite sure that it was all right, and that the man
was a good and true one. The father of Waboose could not have been
otherwise."

I said this somewhat decidedly, for I felt sorely disappointed at our
failure, and slightly annoyed at my friend's unbelief in one whose last
writing proved him--at least to my mind--to be genuine and sincere.

"Well, Max," returned Lumley, with his wonted pleas