It was still dark, and Dean was sleeping heavily after rather an uneasy night. It had been a long time before he could get to sleep, and then his dreams were tinged with a nightmare-like feeling of being forced to go on journeying through hundreds of miles of forest where the tall trunks of the trees were so crowded together that he could hardly force his way between them; and when utterly breathless and exhausted he lay down to rest he could not enjoy that rest for the trouble he had to go through with the little thin, weird, sickly looking black, who had got hold of his toe and kept on pulling at it to make him get up and come to dress his wound. "You must wait till the doctor comes," he muttered. "You must wait till the doctor comes," he muttered again, "and--who's that? What is it?" he exclaimed, quite aloud. "What's the matter with you?" cried Mark, who had been roused by his cry. "Let go of my toe, and I will tell you," cried Dean angrily, and he tried to draw it up, but only to suffer a sharp jerk. "Bother your old toe!" said Mark drowsily. "What's the matter?" "Now, none of your silly games," cried Dean, making a vain effort to kick. "Be quiet, or you will wake uncle and the doctor directly." "You mean you will," growled Mark drowsily. "Go to sleep." "Go to sleep! Why--oh, it's you, is it?" "Get up; get up. Come back--come back!" came from just outside the waggon, and Dean was fully awake now to the fact that Mak was leaning over the hind waggon chest and reaching in to try this novel way of waking him up to carry out the arrangement made overnight. "All right, Mak. Coming. Rouse up, Mark, or we shall be too late." "Eh? Yes; all right." A few minutes later the boys were off, double guns on shoulders and a plentiful supply of number five cartridges in their belts, with the dimly-seen figure of Mak striding away in front. "I did feel so sleepy," said Mark. "I didn't," said Dean. "I could do nothing but dream about trying to get through the forest. Ugh!" he added, with a shiver. "It was horrid!" "What was horrid?" "Being lost." "Yes; it wasn't nice. I wonder how that poor little chap is this morning. I hope he will get well; and I say--I wish Bob Bacon was coming with us instead of going after the buck. He would just have enjoyed this." "Yes, and made black Mak jealous. He doesn't like it when he's left behind. I say, shan't we be too late?" "N-no, I think not," replied Mark. "Mak knows best about this sort of thing; only we had better step out, for we ought to take back a few brace for the larder. I say, what a lot we do eat!"