It was after sunset when Philip and Tumbler appeared on the plateau. No one had come even so far as the gorge; and Philip helped to carry the last of their wood to the rocky point where the blackened embers of the first fire lay in the thin ashes. Coleman and Philip remained to kindle this beacon, while Bromley went to the Cove side with a lighted torch and a bundle of fat pine-knots. When Bromley saw the first smoke of the other fire across the ridge, no light had yet appeared in the windows of the small post-office. Moreover, with his strong eyes he was sure he saw some object moving along the road in the direction of the office. He waited a little, waving his torch, and then he applied it to the dry leaves and sticks at the base of the pile, which flashed quickly into a blaze. Bromley was not content to move about in the light replenishing his fire, but, as often as a fat pine-knot had become enveloped in flame, he separated it from the pile and poked it over the edge of the great smooth rock, to flare against the black storm-stains as it fell, and perhaps to start a new fire in the Cove bottom. A brisk east wind was blowing across the mountain, which carried the smoke and sparks over the long roof of the post-office. Bromley remained late at his work; but at last his strength and his will-power yielded to the weakness that comes with hunger. An overpowering drowsiness compelled him to leave the fire and go stumbling over the hill to the house, where he found Coleman and Philip already asleep. CHAPTER XXIV THE RESCUE When the three soldiers awoke on the morning which followed the kindling of the two fires, Philip was too ill to leave his bunk, and Lieutenant Coleman and Bromley were too weak to drag themselves as far as the rocks where the embers were still smoking. The sun was shining on their United States window, and when they looked out at the door, the old flag of thirty-five stars was floating bravely on the fresh wind. "Three cheers for the stars and stripes, and for Sherman Territory!" cried Bromley, and the weak cheers so exhausted the two men that they sat down on the wooden bench in a state of collapse. Faint as they were from hunger, they were still fainter from thirst, and after a moment's rest they staggered over to the branch and drank their fill of the cool water, and laved their feverish faces in the stream. They brought a cup of the water to Philip who lay quietly in his bunk, and was altogether so weak that they were obliged to hold him up while he drank. "There, there," said Coleman, as they eased him back on his pillow. "You must keep a good heart, for some one will surely come to us to-day."