CHAPTER XV.

Mr. Everts's Thirty-seven Days of Peril--Lost--Loss of Horse--Midnight Dangers--Starvation--Return to Lake--No Food in the Midst of Plenty--Bessie Lake--Thistle Roots--Hunted by a Lion--Storms--First Fire--Vain Efforts to find Food--Attempt to cross the Mountains--The Lost Shoe--Forest on Fire--Hallucination--Turned back--The Doctor--Physiological Transformations--Descending the River--Loss of Lens--Discovery and Rescue 199