“Well, a mile, then,” continued George, unabashed, “an’ then we thought we heard an nawful grunt, an’ we all jumped so that our candles most went out, an’ the skin creeped on our bones, ’cause we thought it might be an Indian ghost, you see, an’ we might get tommy-hawked, an’ our mammas wouldn’t never know where we was, ’cause we sneaked away,” he broke down, with a stifled whimper, and nudged the next boy to go on. Alex took up the story, adding: “The little boys was scared, but we wasn’t, an’ we marched right on, an’ d’reckly we come on a dead man--not Indian bones, no, but a white man with his head all bloody, an’--an’--then we thought we better come back for you, ’cause you know him.” With a groan she cried: “You don’t mean my boarder--Mr. Chester!” Perhaps the little fellows had already decided to break the news to her gently, for they nudged each other, and the oldest one said, sorrowfully: “It looked like him, but maybe ’tain’t. Please come with us and see!” “I will come,” she said, “but wait; you said he groaned.” “Before we got to him it sounded like groans, but when we found him he was dead.” “Dead as a door nail!” sobbed little Laurie, awesomely, while the eyes of the smallest one brimmed over with tears. It needed no more to make the excited woman follow their guidance back to the cave, as they persisted in calling it, taking with her some water and a bottle of wine. She soon found that the little boys had told her the truth. The body of Chester Olyphant lay seemingly lifeless on the ground, the brown curls matted with blood from a wound on the side of the head. “Oh, who has done this awful murder?” she moaned, as she listened at his heart for a throb of life. It seemed to her there was a faint, irregular beat, and she hastened to apply her restoratives, eliciting a low sound like a gasp or sigh. “Oh, boys, we’ll have to carry him out to the air,” she exclaimed, and by their valiant efforts they got him out of the passage just as twilight darkened the world. CHAPTER XVII. “TIME DOES NOT STOP FOR TEARS.” While the wedding was going on at Wheatlands that evening, Doctor Barnes, hastily summoned to the cottage, was sewing up a ghastly cut on Chester Olyphant’s head, and explaining to Widow Gray that it had barely escaped being a fracture of the skull. Even now he could not tell what the outcome would be, for, though life still lingered, there was no return to consciousness. He made the four little heroes very proud and happy by telling them that God himself must have prompted their expedition that day in order to save the young man’s life, and they scampered off home in great excitement, to spread the news of their wonderful adventure. Meanwhile the doctor sent for the best nurse in town, and installed her at the cottage to aid Mrs. Gray in caring for the patient.