writing, such as had guided him to this point.

"I declare!" he exclaimed at length; "the corollary is worse than the
theorem, and things are becoming so decidedly mixed that we must begin
to go slow. I for one propose to replenish that fire, and then bunk
down right here for the rest of the night."

With this the young man went out into the darkness and began groping
about for wood with which to keep up the fire until morning.

In the mean time, Bim, left to his own devices, had struck the trail
leading from the hut to Winn's camp, and started along it, probably
thinking that his master was following him as before. The dog soon
discovered Winn, and undertook to establish friendly relations with him
by rubbing his cold nose against the boy's cheek. The suddenness with
which Winn started up caused the dog to spring back into the darkness,
from the shelter of which he regarded his new acquaintance
distrustfully. Just then Billy Brackett, to cheer the loneliness of
his log-hut, began to chant the ballad of "The Baldheaded Man," and
Bim, hearing his master's voice, darted off in that direction.

Now Billy Brackett, though very fond of music, and possessed of an
inextinguishable longing to produce melodious sounds, could not sing
any more than Bim could. His efforts in this line had so often been
greeted with derisive shouts and unkind remarks by his engineering
comrades that he no longer attempted to sing in public. When alone,
however, and out of hearing of his fellows, he still sometimes broke
forth into song. Bim always howled in sympathy, but the effect of
their combined efforts had never been so surprising as upon the present
occasion, when they caused the precipitate flight from the island of
the very nephew for whom the young engineer was searching.

In blissful ignorance of this unfortunate result of their performance,
Billy Brackett and Bim sang and howled in concert, until their
repertory was exhausted, when they lay down on the floor of the hut,
and with the facility of those to whom camp life has become a second
nature, were quickly asleep. From this slumber Billy Brackett was
startlingly awakened, some time later, by Bim's bark, and a pistol shot
that rang out from the profound stillness of the forest like a
thunder-clap. He grasped the dog's collar and sat up. Before he could
rise any farther there came a roar of guns, a trampling of feet, a
confusion of voices, a rush, and a crashing of wood.