The man who has faced many situations is usually the man who is cautious, and though I had just committed an inexcusable error in my carelessness, I now lost no time in putting up my small silk tent while I could still drag myself about. It was well I did so. For ten days thereafter, I was not able to rest a pound of weight upon my injured foot. With the music and refreshing coolness of the waterfall less than a hundred feet from my tent door, and the creek itself not more than a quarter of that distance, I was most fortunately situated under the circumstances. The first morning after my fall found me almost helpless. Every move I made gave me excruciating pain. My entire foot and ankle, and my leg halfway to the knee, were swollen to twice their normal size. This first day I dragged myself to a sapling, cut it as I lay on my side, and made me a rough crutch of it. The second day, my entire lower limb was swollen until it had lost all semblance to form, and was so badly discolored that a cold and terrible dread began to grow in me. I had only thirty cartridges. I fired ten that first day, in the futile hope that some wandering adventurer might have drifted within the sound of my rifle. Occasionally I hallooed. Night of the second day found me in the beginning of a fever, and, at a cost of physical agony, I prepared myself for the worst--placed my possessions within the reach of my hands, and dragged myself up from the creek with a small pail of water. I shall never forget the dawn of the third day. Racked with pain, with the fever in my blood, my leg now stiff as a board to the thigh, I was still not blind to the beauty of the morning. The rising sun first lighted up the waterfall, then it fell in a warm and golden flood where I had made my camp. In that silence, broken only by the music of the water, every soft note that was made by the wild things came to me distinctly. It was a morning to put cheer and hope into the heart of a dying man. Then my eyes turned, and, a few feet beyond the reach of my hand, I _found something looking at me_. Yes; to me, in that moment, it was a thing living and vibrant with life, and yet it was nothing more than a flower. It grew on a stem a foot high, and the face of it made me think of one of our home-garden pansies; only, the flower was all one color, with longer petals--a soft, velvety blue. It seemed to have turned to face the morning sun, and, in facing the sun, it was squarely facing me--a piquant, joyous, laughing little face, asking me as clearly as in words, “What can possibly be the matter with you on this fine morning?”