It was probably no more than the truth. He had been clever at athletics and open air games, but, as it happened, he had been able to learn them easily. Besides, he had been indulged by his mother and had been rather a favorite at school, and as one result of it he fell short of the hardihood usually acquired by the boy who has everything against him. After all, an hour's exercise in a gymnasium or an hour and a half spent over a game amidst applause and excitement is a very different thing from the strain of unrelaxing effort that must be made all day when there is nobody to cheer. He did not want to rest, but his worn-out body rebelled and mastered him. "Aren't--you--played out?" he stammered weakly. "Oh, yes," replied Harry with a grin. "Still, in this country you're quite often dead played out and have to go on again." "But if you can't?" "Then," said Harry dryly, "you have to keep on trying until you're able to." It struck Frank that this might be painful and his heart sank. After a while he tried another question: "Don't people get lost in the bush every now and then?" "Why, yes," was the answer. "There was a man strayed off from a picnic just outside one of the cities not long ago and they didn't find him until a month or two afterward. He was lying dead not a mile from a graded road." Frank shivered inwardly at this. "Still, I suppose you generally have something to guide you--the moss on the north side of the trees? I've heard that people who don't know about it walk around in rings." "I must have gone pretty straight the only time I was lost," laughed Harry; "and it's mighty hard to find moss in some parts of the bush. In others it's all around the trees. I'd rather have a big peak as a guide. You have heard about people walking round, but I wonder whether you have heard that when they're badly scared they'll walk right across a trail without seeing it?" "Is that a fact?" Frank asked in astonishment. "Sure!" said Harry. "A lost man will sometimes walk across a logging road without the slightest idea that he's doing it. Anyway, I know where the homestead lies. It's only a question of holding out until we reach it." Frank was sincerely pleased to hear this, and by and by he rose with an effort and they went on again. CHAPTER III THE RANCH