46 THE LOO OF A TIMBER CRUISER 



"We might as well wait until morning now," de- 

 cided Frazer; "I don't think there's anything to 

 worry about. Bob's pretty careful. Probably he 

 got caught by darkness and thought he'd better lay 

 out over night. With a fire it isn't much of a hard- 

 ship." 



So we postponed action till next day, when all of 

 us but the baseline crowd set out early to hunt for 

 the missing cruiser. Two parties were formed, one 

 to follow Bob's outward line, east from his first sta- 

 tion, the other to begin at the second station and 

 run out the line along which he should have made his 

 return run. 



Frazer, Wallace and myself formed the second 

 party, which proved the more successful of the two, 

 for we found our man before we had gone a mile. 



He was seated at the bottom of a rock slide, in a 

 little canyon, smoking his pipe and gazing with im- 

 mense disgust at his left leg, which was evidently out 

 of commission. 



Before we could question him in regard to his ac- 

 cident he removed the corncob pipe from his mouth 

 and inquired truculently, "Got any whiskey?" 



We produced the flask brought for just such an 

 emergency and the injured man took a long drink, 

 wiped his lips on the back of his hand and said : 



"Reckon you all think I'm goin' into my second 

 childhood, hey?" 



"How did it happen?" queried Frazer. 



"I just natchelly slipped," replied Moak. "I 



