The lad was gaunt, dirty, a bit delirious and wary of his discoverer.

A million things raced through Nunley's mind. The boy's name was not among them.

''I go, 'What's your name?' '' said Nunley. ''He said, 'Brennan.' ''

As in Brennan Hawkins, the 11-year-old from Bountiful missing for four days in the Uinta Mountains.

Aside from mild dehydration, chapped lips and a bruised ankle, Brennan was in good condition. Within hours, he was at Primary Children's Medical Center, where he was kept overnight for observation.

"Brennan is alive and well. He laughed all the way here," said his mother, Jody Hawkins, who accompanied him in the ambulance ride to Salt Lake City. "People say the heavens are closed and that prayers aren't answered. We are here to unequivocally tell you that prayers are answered and children come home."

The improbable discovery, just 2 1/2 miles west of the Boy Scout camp from which Brennan disappeared, was followed by a joyous reunion for the Hawkins family and a celebration for the thousands of volunteers and professionals who combed the hills and probed the streams since Friday night.

Statistics for survival were not in Brennan's favor. Neither was recent history, which has recorded three lost lives in this region during the past 21 months.

"I never thought we'd ever find him alive," said Tony Garrett, a relative of Hawkins and volunteer searcher.

The happy ending to this tragedy-in-the-making began when a group of horsemen took a wrong turn, and Nunley decided to play hooky from his job as a house painter in Salt Lake City.

About noon Tuesday, Garrett and his friends - Stephen Johnson, Cory Harris and Mark Gines - were riding their horses on the Bear River Smith Trail. But they were supposed to be traveling the other direction, to Lily Lake, then northwest to the highway.

Brennan was in the woods near the trail, and when he saw the men and horses, he moved toward them. But, apparently fearful, Brennan did not call out.

Three to five minutes later, however, Nunley, on his all-terrain vehicle, reached a flat, muddy spot on the trail and looked up to see Brennan staring at him.

The boy was wearing a light blue T-shirt and, black shorts, socks and tennis shoes, and in one hand was holding a long-sleeve black sweatshirt - all wet.

Nunley gave Brennan a bottle of water and a peanut butter, grape jelly and honey sandwich.

"He was afraid to drink the water. He didn't know if he needed to pay for it or what."

Nunley ran up the trail to find cell phone reception, while still keeping Brennan in sight. He called 911. Meanwhile, the four horsemen had returned on the trail, dismounted and went to the boy's side.

"It's a good thing we didn't know where we were going or we wouldn't be here," Gines told The Tribune a few minutes later.

The horsemen removed Brennan's wet clothing and dressed him in Nunley's long-sleeve orange sweatshirt, Garrett's black baseball cap and a fresh pair of white socks.

They wrapped Brennan in a blanket from Nunley's ATV and laid him across the trail. They warmed Brennan, and gave him water, candy and lip balm.

"We asked him why he didn't holler," Johnson said. ''He said, 'Because you're strangers.' ''

A few minutes later, EMTs arrived to check Brennan's vital signs and determined he was fine. During the next hour, emergency personnel talked by radio with their command post and discussed the best way to move Brennan.

There was not enough of a clearing for a helicopter, and they were worried about moving him up or down the bumpy trail on ATV or horseback.

Meanwhile, word of the discovery had broken out among other searchers. People trickled into the site to see Brennan. They laughed, joked, congratulated each other and offered Brennan food and a cell phone to play games on. Some volunteers and emergency personnel posed for pictures with each other and Brennan as he lay on the ground.

Wes Estep, an EMT for the Trenton Fire Department, radioed to tell others the location, saying: ''It'll be easy to find us. There's five four-wheelers, half a dozen horses, and a whole bunch of smiles.''

Brennan said little. The horsemen asked him what had happened, but he did not want to talk about it. He allowed, however, that he had fallen into some water that day.

At one point, Brennan said, ''I want to talk to my mom.''

When someone asked the boy if he wanted to travel on an ATV or a horse, Brennan replied, "Can I go in a car?"

Eventually, Summit County sheriff's deputies and EMTs decided to drive Brennan down the trail.

An EMT and a deputy placed a splint on Brennan's left bruised ankle, and a group carried him on a blanket to a flat spot nearby.

Brennan sat in the bed of a six-wheel ATV against one of the deputies. A processession of ATVs guided him about a mile over the bumpy trail. Searchers along the way cheered and pumped their fists into the air.

Finally, the procession reached a meadow where Brennan's parents and at least three of his five sibblings waited. The family hugged and cried for several minutes then hugged the volunteers and emergency personnel.

That included Nunley, who cried as he embraced Brennan's mother.

Though a medical helicopter was standing by, the family elected to take the boy by ambulance to the hospital.

Brennan disappeared about 6 p.m. Friday from the East Fork of the Bear River Boy Scout Reservation, which he was visiting with a friend's family assisting older varsity Scouts. Brennan is not a varsity Scout but was allowed to scale the camp's climbing wall.

Under circumstances still unknown, he disappeared a short time later.

Summit County search and rescue began operations about 9:45 p.m.

The next day, hundreds of volunteers poured into the Uintas.

An estimated 3,000 came on Sunday and 600 on Monday. Searchers combed the valley around the Boy Scout camp and probed the swollen Bear River, fearing Brennan had fallen in. Sheriff's detectives also examined the possibility of a kidnapping.

The spot where Brennan was found was on the other side of the ridge from the camp and had received scant attention from searchers. "We had a hard time getting the horses over that mountain," Gines said.

Unlike in previous searches that ended tragically, the weather was in Brennan's favor. The skies were dry, with high temperatures in the 70s on Sunday and Monday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Seaman.

On Sunday night, the mercury dipped into the low 30s in the area. Lows hovered around 40 degrees Monday night.

Rescuers believe Brennan's fate would have changed quickly had he not been found. Thunderstorms with rain swept through the East Fork of the Bear River about 3 p.m. Tuesday.

"Had he gotten wet, and as cold as it's going to get tonight, he'd be dead," Edmunds said.

At Primary Children's, doctors said Brennan was doing well.

"Everything suggests he'll make a full recovery," said medical director Edward Clark.

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Tribune reporters Kirsten Stewart, Carey Hamilton, Justin Hill and Kathy Stephenson contributed to this story.