XXX. OSCAR HAS A VISITOR, 292 XXXI. TOM AND HIS PARTNER, 307 XXXII. THE WOLFER’S PLAN, 318 XXXIII. LISH DECIDES TO MOVE, 329 XXXIV. A CLIMAX, 340 XXXV. WHAT OSCAR’S VISITOR DID, 354 XXXVI. THE TABLES TURNED, 365 XXXVII. BIG THOMPSON’S HUNTING DOG, 378 XXXVIII. FAREWELL TO THE HILLS, 389 THE CAMP IN THE FOOT-HILLS; OR, OSCAR ON HORSEBACK. CHAPTER I. AT THE COLONEL’S HEAD-QUARTERS. “I declare, I almost wish I was going with him!” It was our old friend Oscar Preston who said this. He was standing on the platform in front of the station at Julesburg, gazing after the stage-coach in which Leon Parker, the disgusted and repentant runaway, whose adventures and mishaps have already been described, had taken passage for Atchison. Oscar, as we know, had stumbled upon Leon by the merest chance, and fortunately he was in a position to render him the assistance of which he stood so much in need. By advancing him money out of his own pocket he had put it in Leon’s power to return to the home he had so recklessly deserted, and those who have read “TWO WAYS OF BECOMING A HUNTER” know how glad the runaway was to accept his proffered aid. Up to this time Oscar had been all enthusiasm. There was no employment in the world that he could think of that so accorded with his taste as the mission on which he had been sent—that of procuring specimens for the museum that was to be added to the other attractions connected with the university at Yarmouth. His head was full of plans. So anxious was he to make his expedition successful, and to win the approbation of the committee who employed him, that he had been able to think of nothing else; but when he saw the coach moving away from the station he began to have some faint idea of the agony Leon must have suffered when he found himself alone in that wilderness, with no friend to whom he could go for sympathy or advice. In short Oscar was very homesick. In a few days, if nothing unforeseen happened, Leon would be in Eaton, surrounded by familiar scenes and familiar faces, while Oscar himself would, in a short time, disappear as completely from the gaze of the civilized world as though he had suddenly ceased to exist.