As hours went by and the old man did not return, a search party was sent out, and guides familiar with the mountain paths went up Lafayette to seek for him.  It was nearly night when they at last found him, and the grand old mountains had put on those robes of royal purple which they sometimes assume at eventide.  At the foot of a mass of rock, which looked like amethyst or wine-red agate in that marvellous evening light, the old man was lying, and Dash was with him.  From the few faint words Jimmy could then gasp out, the truth was gathered.  He had missed the boys, leaving the path by which they had returned, and while stumbling along in search of them, feeble and weary, he had heard far below a sound of distress.  Looking down over a steep, rocky ledge, he had seen his friend and fishing comrade, old Dash, in sore trouble.  Poor Dash!  He never dreamed of harming his old friend, for he had a kind heart.  But he was a sad coward in some matters, and a very baby when frightened and away from master and friends.  So I fear he may have assumed the role of wounded sufferer when in reality he was but scared and lonesome.  He never owned this afterward, and you may be sure we never let him know, by word or look, the evil he had done.  Jimmy saw him holding up one paw helplessly, and looking at him with wistful, imploring brown eyes, heard his pitiful whimpering cry for aid, and never doubted his great distress and peril.  Was Dash not a fisherman?  And fishermen, in Fishin’ Jimmy’s category, were always true and trusty.  So the old man without a second’s hesitation started down the steep, smooth decline to the rescue of his friend.

We do not know just how or where in that terrible descent he fell.  To us who afterward saw the spot, and thought of the weak old man, chilled by the storm, exhausted by his exertions, and yet clambering down that precipitous cliff, made more slippery and treacherous by the sleet and hail still falling, it seemed impossible that he could have kept a foothold for an instant.  Nor am I sure that he expected to save himself, and Dash too.  But he tried.  He was sadly hurt, I will not tell you of that.

Looking out from the hotel windows through the gathering darkness, we who loved him—­it was not a small group—­saw a sorrowful sight.  Flickering lights thrown by the lanterns of the guides came through the woods.  Across the road, slowly, carefully, came strong men, bearing on a rough hastily made litter of boughs the dear old man.  All that could have been done for the most distinguished guest, for the dearest, best-beloved friend, was done for the gentle fisherman.  We, his friends, and proud to style ourselves thus, were of different, widely separated lands, greatly varying creeds.  Some were nearly as old as the dying man, some in the prime of manhood.  There were youths and maidens and little children.  But through the night we watched together.  The old Roman bishop, whose calm,