"Nat!"
"NAT!"
Joe's third exclamation awoke the slumbering boy and he raised himself on the rough couch on one arm.
"What is it, Joe?" he asked, gazing in a startled way at his chum. Joe was sitting bolt upright on the rough, wooden-framed bed, and gazing through a dilapidated window outside upon the moon-flooded canyon.
"Hark!" whispered Joe, "don't you hear something?"
"Nothing but the water running down that old flume behind the hut."
"That's queer, I don't hear it any more either," said Joe; "guess it was a false alarm."
"Guess so," assented Nat, settling down once more in the blankets. From various parts of the rough hut came the steady, regular breathing of Ding-dong Bell, Cal and Herr Muller. The latter must have been having a nightmare for he kept muttering:——
"Lookd oudt py der sapphires. Lookd oudt!"