184 CAMP-FIRES OF A NATURALIST. 



Striking a match, he looked at his watch and found 

 that it was just eleven o'clock. 



His hands and feet were burning and he was so 

 dead tired that when he sat down to rest he would 

 almost instantly drop to sleep, to be awakened by 

 almost falling from his seat. Then he would push 

 on again. The rushing of the water over the bowl- 

 ders, the weird sounds of the forest, the roaring of 

 the fires which raged on the opposite side of the canon 

 combined to make night hideous and still farther de- 

 press him in his terrible condition ; but he pushed 

 on, determined to reach camp, now that he knew the 

 direction of it. 



The extreme exhaustion now began to tell most 

 strangely on Dyche's brain. Odd fancies and queer 

 hallucinations flashed through his mind, and thoughts 

 that under ordinary circumstances would have ap- 

 peared foolish now had serious consideration. At 

 last he reached a little opening in the jungle and 

 found himself in a small park. He had just begun 

 to breathe freer, when there arose at his feet some 

 huge animal which made two or three bounds away 

 and then stood stock-still. To say that the naturalist 

 was scared is putting it mildly. He lost entirely 

 the little of his self-control which had remained 

 after the awful experience of the night in the jungle. 

 Tears involuntarily came into his eyes, his blood 

 seemed to stand still, while chills began at his feet 

 and crept all over his body, up and down. Fright- 

 ened? He was so frightened that he felt that he 

 should go insane unless something happened to re- 

 lieve the awful strain. 



