hts above. All were proceeding as silently as possible, too,
and that gave an air of secrecy, of mystery, to the wild scenery and
the romantic moonlight. Occasionally the flickering gold of a
camp-fire mingled with the silver of the moon.

Just before dawn, when the members of the party were nearly ready to
drop from exhaustion, a sharp challenge rang out ahead, and Lieutenant
Gordon gave a word which caused a cautious guard to withdraw his
threatening gun, and to hasten forward to greet his chief. With his
first breath he asked a question.

"Have you seen anything of those confounded boys?"

"The drummer and the Bowery lad?" asked the lieutenant. "Why, we left
them with you when we went down the hill."

"Well, they're gone!" exclaimed the guard, despondently.

"Gone!" repeated Nestor, stepping forward. "Where have they gone? Has
anything been heard of Fremont?"

"Not a word," said the guard, answering only the last question. "It is
my idea that the other boys sneaked off in the hope of finding him. I
sent them into one of the tents to sleep, and when I looked in a short
time later, they were not there."

"It is certain that they were not carried off?" asked Lieutenant Gordon.

"Certain," was the reply. "We watched the tents every second."

"And yet the boys got away without being seen," said the lieutenant,
angrily.

"I don't see how they did it," was the abashed reply.

"I have little doubt that they have been carried away by the men who
captured Fremont," Nestor said, gravely. "Still, it may be that they
have only wandered off in search of the boy. It is a serious
situation."

"The mountain is swarming with men," the lieutenant said. "The only
wonder is that we have not been attacked. I fear that the boys have
been captured, even if they only wandered away to look for their
friend."

Nestor walked restlessly about the little camp for a moment and then
looked into the two tents, as if expecting to find some one there.

"Where is Shaw?" he asked, then, alarm in his voice. "Where is the boy
we sent on ahead of us? He must have reached here a long time ago."

The guards looked surprised at the question.

"Why," one of them said, "no one came here from below but yourselves.
We have seen no one."

Nestor stood for a moment as if he thought the men were playing a trick
on him, then the gravity of the situation asserted itself. What
mischief was afoot in the mountains? Why had the boys dis