out the place.
Don't go away from the streams. Why?" he added, as he saw my inquiring
look; "because if you wander into the forest there is nothing to guide
you back. One tree is so like another that you might never find your
way out again. Easy enough to talk about, but very terrible if you
think of the consequences. If you ascend one of the streams, you have
only to follow it back to the river. It is always there as a guide."

Nothing could have gratified us more, and for some days we spent our
time exploring, always finding enough to attract, watching the
inhabitants of the woods, fishing, bathing, climbing the trees, and
going some distance up into the solitudes of one of the mountains.

It was a pleasant time, and neither of us was in a hurry to commence
work, the attractions were so many.

"It's so different to being in streets in London," Esau was always
saying. "There it's all people, and you can hardly cross the roads for
the 'busses and cabs. Here it's all so still, and I suppose you might
go on wandering in the woods for ever and never see a soul."

It almost seemed as if that might be the case, and a curious feeling of
awe used to come over me when we wandered up one of the little valleys,
and were seated in the bright sunshine upon some moss-cushioned rock,
listening to the murmur of the wind high up in the tall pines--a sound
that was like the gentle rushing of the sea upon the shore.

Mr Raydon generally asked us where we had been, and laughed at our
appetites.

"There, don't be ashamed, Mayne," he said, as he saw me look abashed;
"it is quite natural at your age. Eat away, my lad, and grow muscular
and strong. I shall want your help some day, for we are not always so
quiet and sleepy as you see us now."

I had good reason to remember his words, though I little thought then
what a strange adventure was waiting to fall to my lot.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

WE MAKE A DISCOVERY.

We two lads wandered away one day along a valley down which a stream
came gliding here, roaring in a torrent there, or tumbling over a mass
of rock in a beautiful fall, whose spray formed quite a dew on the
leaves of the ferns which clustered amongst the stones and masses of
rock. To left and right the latter rose up higher and higher crowned
with fir-trees, some of which were rooted wherever there was sufficient
earth, while others seemed to have started as seeds in a crevice at the
top of a block of rock, and