fering,
but he looked up bravely and smiled upon me as I bent over him to lift
him. Before I could speak, Bud had cut the bands and freed him. He
could not move, and I lifted him like a child in my strong arms.

"Is the town safe?" he asked feebly.

"Yes, now we've found you," Dave Mead replied.

"How did you get here, O'mie?" Clayton Anderson asked.

But O'mie, lying limply in my arms, murmured deliriously of the ladder
by the shop, and wondered feebly if it could reach from the river up to
the Hermit's Cave. Then his head fell forward and he lay as one dead on
my knee.

A year before we would have been a noisy crew that worked our way to
this all but inaccessible place, and we would have filled the valley
with whoops of surprise at finding anything in the cavern. To-day we
hardly spoke as we carried O'mie out into the light. He shivered a
little, though still unconscious, and then I felt the hot fever begin to
pulse throughout his body.

Dave Mead was half way up the cliff to Father Le Claire. Out on the
point John Anderson waved, to the crest above, the simple message,
"We've found him."

Bud dived into the cavern and brought out an empty jug, relic of Jean
Pahusca's habitation there.

"What he needth ith water," Bud declared. "I'll bet he'th not had a drop
for two dayth."

"How can you get some, Bud? We can't reach the river from here," I said.

"Bah! all mud, anyhow. I'll climb till I find a thpring. They're all
around in the rockth. The Lord give Motheth water. I'll hunt till He
thoweth me where it ith."

Bud put off in the bushes. Presently his tow head bobbed through the
greenery again and a jug dripping full of cool water was in his hands.

"Thame leadin' that brought uth here done it," he lisped, moistening
O'mie's lips with the precious liquid.

Bud had a quaint use of Bible reference, although he disclaimed Dr.
Hemingway's estimate of him as the best scholar in the Presbyterian
Sunday-school.

It seemed hours before relief came. I held O'mie all that time, hoping
that the gracious May sunshine might win him to us again, but his
delirium increased. He did not know any of us, but babbled of strange
things.

At length many shouts overhead told us that half of Springvale was above
us, and a rude sort of hammock was being lowered. "It's the best we can
do," shouted Father Le Claire. "Tie him in and we'll pull him up."

It was rough handling even with the tenderest of care, and a very
dangero