"Oh, if Keno had only not broken away!"

The futile wish was maddening in his present plight. He showered
sharp epithets upon the absent pony, until he remembered the probability
that Keno's return without him would be the means of sending some
one to the rescue. This was some consolation, though it was but
cold comfort in view of the fact that, had Keno not bolted, this
mishap would not have occurred.

However, there was no help for it now. Meanwhile, the badly sprained
ankle was throbbing painfully, and Ralph's next thought was to
thrust it, without taking off his shoe, into the cold running
water in order to check the swelling. He held his foot there,
shivering with relief, then he stretched himself out on the bank of
the stream, in the warm sunlight. Whereupon, with anxious mind and
weary body soothed by the loud splash of the waterfall, with the
pain in his ankle considerably relieved, and with a soft, grassy
nook beside a rock offering repose, it was not very strange that,
after closing his eyes drowsily, Ralph sank into a troubled slumber.

When he awoke, the sun was only a little way above the tops of the
highest trees, and long golden shafts of light were slanting down
through the branches, making an intricate tracery of shadows on the
ground. The air was beginning to have a decided chill, for the
wind had shifted to the west and was blowing the spray of the
waterfall into Ralph's face.

Strange that no one had come, in search of him! Of course his
mother could not have hitched Keno to the old buggy and driven