"We've come down here to see if we could help you any," Phil said the first thing, when he and his chums reached the fire.
"How'd ye know we was around these diggin's?" asked the guide, as though puzzled.
"We've got a gentleman in camp with a badly broken leg, and he asked us to come," Phil went on to say, narrowly watching the eager face of the woman, who he could see was by breeding a lady, and a very handsome one too no doubt, though just at that time she looked woe-begone, with her long hair hanging down her back to dry, and her khaki outing skirts bedraggled. "He's been worrying all the night, and nearly crazy because he was afraid some one would be caught in the storm, some one he expected was coming to find him."
Waves of color passed over her face as she heard how the gentleman had been so deeply concerned.
"Would you mind telling me his name?" she asked Phil; and somehow the boy was reminded of Mazie when he looked more closely at her.
"He has been calling himself John Newton all along," he remarked; "but just this morning he admitted that his real name was Merriwell—Alwyn Merriwell."
She drew a long breath. Her eyes were as bright as stars as she hurriedly went on to ask another question; and both Phil and Ethan knew exactly what this would be before she had uttered a single word.
"Is there a little girl with—Mr. Merriwell? Oh! please tell me instantly, for I am crazy to hear!"
"Yes, and her name is Mazie!" Phil immediately replied. "We found her lost in the woods, and took her to our camp. Then later on we ran across him. He had broken his leg while searching for her, and tried to crawl miles, thinking to get help from us so as to find her. He came near dying, too."
She dropped her head in her hands, and they could see that she was crying very hard. Whether it was through sheer thankfulness because of what she had heard concerning the presence of the child, or from some other reason, Phil could not quite understand. But he believed it was all going to turn out splendidly.