"Good heavens!" exclaimed Toney, "I recognize that voice!" And he sprang up and ran to the camp-fire. Two stalwart young men, in the rough garbs of miners, were standing with their backs to the blazing logs.

"Harry Vincent!" cried Toney.

"Clarence Hastings!" shouted Tom Seddon, as he rushed forward and grasped his long-lost friends each by the hand.

CHAPTER L.

"What a madman I have been!" cried Harry.

"And what a crazy fool I have been for five long years!" exclaimed Clarence.

"I have been an idiot!" said Harry.

"And I have been a brute!" said Clarence, "to desert her as I did!"

"She is an angel!" cried Harry.

"What must she think of me?" groaned Clarence.

"Let us go back to the States!" said Harry, springing up impulsively.

"You can't go to-night. We will all be off in the morning," said Tom Seddon.

These exclamations were uttered by the two young men after a conversation, in which all that has been long known to the reader was fully explained.

In the morning, before the woodp.e.c.k.e.r's tap was heard on the bark of the lofty pines, the young men were on their feet, and making preparations for their departure.

"Where is Hercules?" asked Toney.

"He is sleeping by the side of yonder old log," said Tom.

"I will wake him," said Toney. And he proceeded to the spot pointed out, and came running back as pale as a ghost.

"What's the matter?" asked Tom.

Toney could hardly speak. He gasped out,--

"A rattlesnake is coiled up on his blanket!"

Tom Seddon was about to run to the spot, when Harry Vincent held him back.

"Hush!" said Harry. "Make no noise, or he is a dead man!"

He and Clarence then took their rifles and advanced cautiously to the place where Hercules lay in a sound sleep. The reptile was coiled up with its head nearly touching his shoulder. Harry put the muzzle of his rifle within an inch of the snake's head and fired.

Hercules leaped up and uttered a howl. He turned round and beheld two strange men standing before him with rifles in their hands. With a wild yell of terror the giant fled across the ravine, and along a road leading over a mountain.

"Come back! come back!" shouted Toney.

But Hercules continued his flight.

"Mount that mule, Tom, and ride after him, or the fool won't stop running until he gets to Oregon," said Toney.

Tom mounted the mule, and, after a long chase, captured the giant and brought him back to camp.

"Look there!" said Tom, pointing to the decapitated serpent.

"Was that it?" said Hercules. "He's a whopper!" And he stooped down and examined the dead body of his bed-fellow.

"Eighteen rattles and a b.u.t.ton!" said Tom.

"Which indicate that he has lived twenty-one years," said Clarence.

"The snake had arrived at years of discretion," said the Professor.

"He showed very little discretion in selecting Hercules for a sleeping partner," said Toney.

"The firm of Hercules & Co. would be a dangerous one to deal with,"

said the Professor.

"To avoid it would have been prudent during the lifetime of his deceased partner," said Toney.

"What are you going to do with them?" asked Tom, as Hercules cut off the rattles and put them in his pocket.

"Carry them with me to the States, when I go," said Hercules.

"We are going back now," said Tom.

"Are you going?" asked Hercules.

"Yes," said Tom; "we are getting ready to start."

"I will go too," said Hercules; "I have got gold enough."

"What will you do with your gold when you get home?" asked Tom.

"Buy a farm, and then----" Hercules hesitated and blushed.

"Well, what then?" asked Toney.

"I will marry my little cousin," said the giant.

"That's right!" said Toney.