vanish amidst the colored foliage of some bushes.

This last event caused Steve to give a real yell, he was so startled.
Hardly had he done this than he gripped the sleeve of his comrade.

"Did you hear that. Max? Was it an echo to my whoop; or did somebody
really call out in a weak voice! Anyway, it seemed to come from right
over there," and he pointed confidently as he spoke.

Max himself was of the same opinion, for he felt almost certain that a
human voice had tried to attract their attention, though possibly the
person giving utterance to the cry was so weak that he could not make
much effort.

They changed their course a little, and headed directly toward the
region whence Steve had pointed so positively. When Max held the other
up presently and called again, all doubt was removed.

"Here, this way! I'm in pretty bad shape, I guess. Don't leave me,
please, whoever you are. I'll pay you a hundred dollars to get me out of
this scrape!"

Evidently, the speaker, whom Max decided must be Robert Chase, and no
other, supposed the persons approaching, and whose voices he had heard,
must be woods guides who might consider themselves fortunate indeed to
earn such a royal sum so easily.

Two minutes afterwards and the boys found him. He must have fallen into
the hole while hurrying through the forest, after breaking away from the
grip of the boys at the cabin. He had been severely cut by a sharp
flint-like rock, and lost considerable blood, which weakened him so
that, as he afterwards confessed to them, he must have swooned away,
and lain there for hours unaware of his perilous condition.

The two boys soon managed to get the young man up on level ground. As
often happened, it was Max who conceived the easiest way of doing this.
To lift a dead weight of a hundred and fifty pounds is no light task,
and so he started to break away one side of the pit, thus raising the
bottom of the interior until they were able to simply _carry_ Robert out
of the hole.

Steve was loud in his expressions of admiration.

"Whoever else would have thought up such a clever piece of business,
Max, but you?" he went on to say, as they rested after their effort.
"Why, if it'd been me in charge now, I reckon I'd have gone to all sorts
of trouble rigging up some sort of block-and-tackle, so as to hoist him
up; but you just knock down a part of the wall, and there you are, as
neat as wax. Wherever did you learn that trick, I want to know, Max?