Raymond declared that he would rather loaf than eat, and he didn’t care if he never ate again if he only got well rested. That was the way they felt when they stopped, but a very little rest will suffice to make healthy boys conscious of gnawing hunger, especially when they have eaten very little through the day, as was the case with Sidney and Raymond. Soon both of them began to feel a strong desire to explore the lunch-bags, but they remembered how dry that lunch was, and how difficult it would be to eat it without something to wash it down. Raymond proposed that they move down to the stream and eat their supper there where the water was handy, but Sidney told his brother to stay where he was and he would take a large cup with which they had provided themselves and bring water up. Raymond lay at his ease on the ground, lazily watching Sidney as he went down to the stream and knelt to fill his cup and take a drink before returning to camp. From the stream, Raymond allowed his gaze to wander on to the rugged mountains of the opposite side, and then up the ravine to the narrow gorge. There his look paused with a start, for he saw an object moving, which in a moment he identified as a man. The figure was coming down the ravine, just below the gorge. As Raymond looked, the man dropped to one knee and brought a long rifle up to a sight down the ravine. Raymond wondered what the game could be that was the object of the hunter’s aim. The gun, apparently, pointed directly down the ravine, and the boy looked rapidly along to try to discover the animal. His gaze traveled down until it encountered his brother still stooping to fill the cup, and he had seen no game. Then, as his eye rested on Sidney, in a flash he realized that his brother was the game the hunter was stalking. His heart seemed to leap into his throat, where it nearly stifled him. Making a supreme effort he overcame the convulsion of terror and shouted,-- “Drop flat, Sid!” CHAPTER VI A DESPERATE ENCOUNTER When Raymond shouted, Sidney obeyed instantly without looking up, and fell flat on his face at the side of the stream. At the same instant there was a puff of smoke from the leveled gun, a report, and a ball whistled just above Sidney’s form. The man up the ravine sprang to his feet and dropped the stock of his gun to the ground. Raymond saw that he was proceeding to load with powder and ball, and he shouted to Sidney again,-- “Come back, Sid, quick, he’s got a muzzle-loader.” Sidney jumped up and raced for camp, reaching it before the man had finished loading his rifle. Raymond took out his pistol and prepared to shoot, but the distance to the man who had fired was so great that he decided to wait, and lowered his gun. As he did so he saw that the figure up the ravine was joined by another who came from out of the gorge. “Sid,” he said to his brother without taking his eyes from the men, “they were waylaying us in the gorge. It’s lucky we were too tired to go on.”