In the Heart of the Rockies: A Story of Adventure in Colorado

by G. A. Henty

  CHAPTER IX

  A BAD TIME

  "Even to me," Harry went on, after refilling and lighting his pipe, "itdid not seem long before the chief was back. He brought a heavy load,for besides the rifles and bear's flesh he carried on his back a bigfaggot of brushwood. After laying that down he searched among the rocks,and presently set to work to dig out the snow and earth between two bigblocks, and was not long before he scooped out with his tomahawk a holebig enough for the two of us to lie in comfortably. He laid thebear's-skin down in this, then he carried me to it and helped me in andthen put the robes over me; and a snugger place you would not want tolie in.

  "It was about ten feet below the level of the crest of the heap ofrocks, and of course on the upper side, so that directly the red-skinsmade their appearance he could help me up to the top. That the two of uscould keep the Utes back I did not doubt; we had our rifles, and thechief carried a revolver as well as I did. After they had once caught aglimpse of the sort of place we were on, I did not think they wouldventure into the ravine, for they would have lost a dozen men beforethey got to the mound. I had looked round while the chief was away, andI saw that a hundred yards or so higher up, the ravine came to an end,the sides closing in, so there was no fear of our being attacked fromthere. What I was afraid of was that the Indians might be able to get upabove and shoot down on us, though whether they could or not depended onthe nature of the ground above, and of course I could not see beyond theedge of the rocks.

  "But even if they could not get up in the daylight, they could crawl upat night and finish us, or they could camp down at the mouth of theravine and starve us out, for there was no chance of our climbing thesides, even if my leg had been all right. I was mighty sorry for thechief. He had just thrown his life away, and it must come to the same inthe end, as far as I was concerned. Even now he could get away if hechose, but I knew well enough it weren't any good talking to him. So Ilay there, just listening for the crack of his rifle above. He wouldbring down the first man that came in, sartin, and there would be plentyof time after that to get me up beside him, for they would be sure tohave a long talk before they made any move. I did not expect them untillate in the afternoon, and hoped it might be getting dark before theygot down into the valley. There had been a big wind sweeping down itsince the snow had fallen, and though it had drifted deep along thesides, the bottom was for the most part bare. I noticed that the chiefhad picked his way carefully, and guessed that, as they would have noreason for thinking we were near, they might not take up the trail tillmorning. Of course they would find our fire and the dead bear, or allthat there was left of him, and they would fancy we had only stopped totake a meal and had gone on again. They would see by the fire that wehad left pretty early in the day. I heard nothing of the chief until itbegan to get dark; then he came down to me.

  "'Leaping Horse will go out and scout,' he said. 'If Utes not come soon,will come back here; if they come, will watch down at mouth of valleytill he sees Utes go to sleep.' 'Well, chief,' I said; 'at any rate youmay as well take this robe; one is enough to sleep with in this hole,and I shall be as snug as a beaver wrapped up in mine. Half your huntingshirt is gone, and you will find it mighty cold standing out there.'

  "In an hour he came back again. 'Utes come,' he said. 'Have just lightedfire and going to cook. No come tonight. Leaping Horse has good news forhis brother. There are no stars.'

  "That is good news indeed,' I said. 'If it does but come on to snowto-night we may carry our scalps back to the settlement yet.'

  "'Leaping Horse can feel snow in the air,' he said. 'If it snows beforemorning, good; if not, the Utes will tell their children how many livesthe scalps of the Englishman and the Seneca cost.'

  "The chief lay down beside me. I did not get much sleep, for my leg washurting me mightily. From time to time he crawled out, and each time hereturned saying, 'No snow.' I had begun to fear that when it came itwould be too late. It could not have been long before daybreak when hesaid, as he crawled in: 'The Great Manitou has sent snow. My brother cansleep in peace.' An hour later I raised myself up a bit and looked out.It was light now. The air was full of fine snow, and the earth the chiefhad scraped out was already covered thickly. I could see as much asthat, though the chief had, when he came in for the last time, drawn thefaggot in after him. I wondered at the time why he did it, but I sawnow. As soon as the snow had fallen a little more it would hide upaltogether the entrance to our hole. Hour after hour passed, and itbecame impossible to get even a peep out, for the snow had fallen sothickly on the leafy end of the brushwood, which was outward, that ithad entirely shut us in. All day the snow kept on, as we could tell fromthe lessening light, and by two o'clock only a faint twilight made itsway in.

  "'How long do you think we shall be imprisoned here, chief?' I asked.

  "'Must not hurry,' he replied. 'There are trees up the valley, and theUtes may make their camp there and stay till the storm is over. No useto go out till my brother can walk. Wait till snow is over; then staytwo or three days to give time for Utes to go away. Got bear's flesh toeat; warm in here, melt snow.' This was true enough, for I was feelingit downright hot. Just before night came on the chief pushed the end ofhis ramrod through the snow and looked out along the hole.

  "'Snow very strong,' he said. 'When it is dark can go out if wish.'

  "There is not much to tell about the next five days. The snow keptfalling steadily, and each evening after dark the chief went outside fora short time to smoke his pipe, while I sat at the entrance and smokedmine, and was glad enough to get a little fresh air. As soon as he camein again the faggot was drawn back to its place, and we were imprisonedfor another twenty-four hours. One gets pretty tired after a time ofeating raw bear's flesh and drinking snow-water, and you bet I waspretty glad when the chief, after looking out through a peephole, saidthat the snow had stopped falling and the sun was shining. About themiddle of that day he said suddenly: 'I hear voices.'

  "It was some time before I heard anything, but I presently made themout, though the snow muffled them a good deal. They did not seem faroff, and a minute or two later they ceased. We lay there two dayslonger, and then even the chief was of opinion that they would havemoved off. My own idea was that they had started the first afternoonafter the snow had stopped falling.

  "'Leaping Horse will go out to scout as soon as it is dark,' he said.'Go to mouth of ravine. If Utes are in wood he will see their fires andcome back again. Not likely come up here again and find his traces.'

  "That is what I had been saying for the last two days, for after some ofthem had been up, and had satisfied themselves that there was no one inthe gully, they would not be likely to come through the snow again. Whenthe chief returned after an hour's absence, he told me that the Utes hadall gone. 'Fire cold,' he said; 'gone many hours. Leaping Horse hasbrought some dry wood up from their hearth. Can light fire now.' You mayguess it was not long before we had a fire blazing in front of our den,and I never knew how good bear-steak really was till that evening.

  "The next morning the chief took off the splints and rebandaged my leg,this time putting on a long strip of the bear's skin, which he hadworked until it was perfectly soft while we had been waiting there. Overthis he put on the splints again, and for the first time since that bearhad knocked me off the rock I felt at ease. We stayed there anotherfortnight, by the end of which time the bones seemed to have knit prettyfairly. However, I had made myself a good strong crutch from a straightbranch with a fork at the end, that the chief had cut for me, and I hadlashed a wad of bear's skin in the fork to make it easy. Then westarted, making short journeys at first, but getting longer every day asI became accustomed to the crutch, and at the end of a week I was ableto throw it aside.

  "We never saw a sign of an Indian trail all the way down to thesettlements, and by the time we got there I was ready to start on ajourney again. The chief found plenty of game on the way down, and Ihave never had as much as a twinge in my leg since. So you see thisaffair ain't a cir
cumstance in comparison. Since then the chief and Ihave always hunted together, and the word brother ain't only a mode ofspeaking with us;" and he held out his hand to the Seneca, who gravelyplaced his own in it.

  "That war a tight corner, Harry, and no blamed mistake. Did you everfind out whether they could have got on the top to shoot down on you?"

  "Yes, the chief went up the day after the Utes had left. It was level upthere, and they could have sat on the edge and fired down upon us, andwiped us out without our having a show."

  "And you have never since been to that place you struck the day the Utescame down, Harry?" Jerry asked. "I have heard you talk of a place youknew of, just at the edge of the bad lands, off the Utah hills. Werethat it?"

  Harry nodded. "I have never been there since. I went with a party intoNevada the next spring, and last year the Utes were all the time uponthe war-path. I had meant to go down this fall, but the Utes were toolively, so I struck up here instead; but I mean to go next springwhether they are quiet or not, and to take my chances, and find outwhether it is only good on the surface and peters out to nothing whenyou get in, or whether it is a real strong lode. Ben and Sam, and ofcourse the chief, will go with me, and Tom here, now he has come out,and if you like to come we shall be all glad."

  "You may count me in," Jerry said, "and I thank you for the offer. Ihave had dog-goned bad luck for some time, and I reckon it is about timeit was over. How are you going to share?"

  "We have settled that. The chief and I take two shares each asdiscoverers. You four will take one share each."

  "That is fair enough, Harry. Those are mining terms, and after yournearly getting rubbed out in finding it, if you and the chief had eachtaken three shares there would have been nothing for us to grunt at.They are a 'tarnal bad lot are the Utes. I reckon they are bad bynature, but the Mormons have made them worse. There ain't no doubt it'sthey who set them on to attack the caravans. They could see from thefirst that if this was going to be the main route west there would be somany coming along, and a lot perhaps settle there, that the Gentiles, asthey call the rest of us, would get too strong for them. What they havebeen most afeard of is, that a lot of gold or silver should be found upin the hills, and that would soon put a stop to the Mormon business.They have been wise enough to tell the red-skins that if men came in andfound gold there would be such a lot come that the hunting would be allspoilt. There is no doubt that in some of the attacks made on thecaravans there have been sham Indians mixed up with the real ones.Red-skins are bad enough, but they are good men by the side ofscoundrels who are false to their colour, and who use Indians to killwhites. That is one reason I want to see this railway go on till itjines that on the other side. It will be bad for game, and I reckon in afew years the last buffalo will be wiped out, but I will forgive itthat, so that it does but break up the Saints as they call themselves,though I reckon there is about as little of the saint among them as youwill find if you search all creation."

  "Right you are, Jerry," Sam Hicks said. "They pretty nigh wiped me outonce, and if Uncle Sam ever takes to fighting them you may bet that I amin it, and won't ask for no pay."

  "How did it come about, Sam?" Jerry asked. "I dunno as I have ever heardyou tell that story."

  "Waal, I had been a good bit farther east, and had been doing somescouting with the troops, who had been giving a lesson to the red-skinsthere, that it was best for them to let up on plundering the caravansgoing west. We had done the job, and I jined a caravan coming this way.It was the usual crowd, eastern farmers going to settle west, miners,and such like. Among them was two waggons, which kept mostly as farapart from the others as they could. They was in charge of two fellowswho dressed in store clothes, and had a sanctimonious look about them.There was an old man and a couple of old women, and two or three boysand some gals. They did not talk much with the rest, but it got aboutthat they were not going farther than Salt Lake City, and we had notmuch difficulty in reckoning them up as Mormons. There ain't no lawperviding for the shooting of Mormons without some sort of excuse, andas the people kept to themselves and did not interfere with no one,nothing much was said agin them. On a v'yage like that across theplains, folks has themselves to attend to, and plenty to do both on themarch and in camp, so no one troubles about any one else's business.

  "I hadn't no call to either, but I happened to go out near their waggonsone evening, and saw two or three bright-looking maids among them, andit riled me to think that they was going to be handed over to some richold elder with perhaps a dozen other wives, and I used to feel as itwould be a satisfaction to pump some lead into them sleek-lookingscoundrels who had them in charge. I did not expect that the gals hadany idea what was in store for them. I know them Mormons when they goesout to get what they call converts, preaches a lot about the prophet,and a good deal about the comforts they would have in Utah. So much landfor nothing, and so much help to set them up, and all that kind ofthing, but mighty little about polygamy and the chance of their beinghanded over to some man old enough to be their father, and without theirhaving any say in the matter. Howsoever, I did not see as I couldinterfere, and if I wanted to interfere I could not have done it;because all those women believed what they had been taught, and if I astranger, and an ill-looking one at that, was to tell them the contrary,they wouldn't believe a word what I had said. So we went on till we gotwithin four or five days' journey of Salt Lake City, then one morning,just as the teams were being hitched up, two fellows rode into camp.

  "As we were in Utah now, there weren't nothing curious about that, but Ireckoned them up as two as hard-looking cusses as I had come across fora long time. After asking a question or two they rode to the Mormonwaggons, and instead of starting with the rest, the cattle was taken outand they stopped behind. Waal, I thought I would wait for a bit and seewhat they were arter. It weren't no consarn of mine noways, but I knew Icould catch up the waggons if I started in the afternoon, and Iconcluded that I would just wait; so I sat by the fire and smoked. Whenthe caravan had gone on the Mormons hitched up their cattle again. Theywere not very far away from where I was sitting, and I could see one ofthe men in black pointing to me as he talked with the two chaps who hadjust jined them. With that the fellow walked across to where I wassitting.

  "'Going to camp here?' says he.

  "'Waal,' I says, 'I dunno, as I haven't made up my mind about it. MaybeI shall, maybe I sha'n't.'

  "'I allow it would be better for you to move on.'

  "'And I allow,' says I, 'it would be better for you to attend to yourown affairs.'

  "'Look here,' says he, 'I hear as you have been a-spying about themwaggons.'

  "'Then,' says I, 'whosoever told you that, is an all-fired liar, and youtell him so from me.'

  "I had got my hand on the butt of my Colt, and the fellow weakened.

  "'Waal,' he said, 'I have given you warning, that is all.'

  "'All right,' says I, 'I don't care none for your warnings; and I wouldrather anyhow be shot down by white skunks dressed up as red-skins, thanI would have a hand in helping to fool a lot of innercent women.'

  "He swore pretty bad at this, but I could see as he wasn't real grit,and he went off to the waggons. There was considerable talk when he gotthere, but as the Mormons must have known as I had been a scout, and hadbrought a lot of meat into the camp on the way, and as the chap thatcame across must have seen my rifle lying handy beside me, I guess theyallowed that I had better be left alone. So a bit later the waggonsstarted, and as I expected they would, went up a side valley instead ofgoing on by the caravan route. The fellow had riz my dander, and aftersitting for a bit I made up my mind I would go after 'em. I had noparticular motive, it wur just out of cussedness. I was not going to bebluffed from going whar I chose. This air a free country, and I had asmuch right to go up that valley as they had."

  "I should have thought yer had had more common sense, Sam Hicks," Jerrysaid reproachfully, "than to go a-mixing yourself up in a business inwhich you had no sort of consarn. Ef one of th
em women had asked you tohelp her, or if you had thought she was being taken away agin her will,you or any other man would have had a right to take a hand in the game;but as it was, you war just fooling with your life to interfere withthem Mormons in their own country."

  "That is so, Jerry, and I ain't a word to say agin it. It war just apiece of cussedness, and I have asked myself forty-eleven times since,what on arth made me make such a blame fool of myself. Afore that fellowcame over to bluff me I hadn't no thought of following the waggons, butarter that I felt somehow as if he dared me to do it. I reckoned I wasmore nor a match for the two fellows who just jined them, and as for thegreasy-faced chaps in black, I did not count them in, one way or theother. I had no thought of getting the gals away, nor of getting intoany muss with them if they left me alone. It was just that I had got aright to go up that valley or any other, and I was not going to bebluffed out of it. So I took up my shooting-iron, strapped my blanketover my shoulder, and started. They war maybe a mile away when I turnedinto the valley. I wasn't hungry for a fight, so I didn't keep up themiddle, but just skirted along at the foot of the hill where it did notseem likely as they would see me. I did not get any closer to them, andonly caught sight of them now and then.

  "As far as I could make out there was only one horseman with them, and Ireckoned the other was gone on ahead; looking for a camping-groundmaybe, or going on to one of the Mormon farms to tell them to get thingsready there. What I reckoned on doing, so far as I reckoned at all, wasto scout up to them as soon as it got dark and listen to their talk, andtry to find out for certain whether the women war goin' willing. Then Ithought as I would walk straight up to their fires and just bluff thosefour men as they tried to bluff me. Waal, they went on until late in theafternoon, unhitched the cattle, and camped. I waited for a bit, and nowthat I war cooled down and could look at the thing reasonable, I allowedto myself that I had showed up as a blamed fool, and I had pretty wellmade up my mind to take back tracks and go down the valley, when I heardthe sound of some horses coming down fast from the camp.

  "Then the thought that I was a 'tarnal fool came to me pretty strong,you bet. One of those fellows had ridden on and brought down some of theRegulators, as we used to call them in the mining camps, but I believethe Mormons call them Destroying Angels, though there is mighty littleof angels about them. I hoped now that they had not caught sight of meduring the day, and that the band were going right down to the waggoncamp; but as I had not taken any particular pains to hide myself, Ireckoned they must have made me out. It war pretty nigh dark, and as Itook cover behind a bush I could scarce see them as they rode along.They went down about two hundred yards and then stopped, and I couldhear some of them dismount.

  "'You are sure we are far enough?' one said.

  "'Yes; I can swear he was higher up than this when we saw him justbefore we camped.'

  "'If you two fellows hadn't been the worst kind of curs,' a man saidangrily, 'you would have hidden up as soon as you made out he wasfollowing you and shot him as he came along.'

  "'I told you,' another voice said, 'that the man is an Indian fighter,and a dead shot. Suppose we had missed him.'

  "'You could not have missed him if you had waited till he was close toyou before you fired; then you might have chucked him in among thebushes and there would have been an end of it, and we should have beensaved a twenty-mile ride. Now then, look sharp for him and search everybush. Between us and Johnson's party above we are sure to catch him.'

  "I didn't see that, though I did wish the rocks behind had not been so'tarnal steep. I could have made my way up in the daylight, though eventhen it would have been a tough job, but without light enough to see thelay of the ledges and the best places for getting from one to another,it was a business I didn't care about. I was just thinking of makingacross to the other side of the valley when some horsemen came gallopingback.

  "'You stop here, brother Ephraim, and keep your ears well open, as wellas your eyes. You stop fifty yards higher up, Hiram, and the others atthe same distance apart. When the men among the rocks come abreast ofyou, Ephraim, ride on and take your place at the other end of the line.You do the same, Hiram, and so all in turn; I will ride up and down.'

  "It was clear they meant business, and I was doubting whether I wouldtake my chance of hiding or make for the cliff, when I saw a lightcoming dancing down from the camp, and knew it was a chap on horsebackwith a torch. As he came up the man who had spoken before said: 'Howmany torches have you got, brother Williams?'

  "'A dozen of them.'

  "'Give me six, and take the other six down to the men below. That isright, I will light one from yours.'

  "You may guess that settled me. I had got to git at once, so I began tocrawl off towards the foot of the cliffs. By the time I had got there,there war six torches burning a hundred yards below, and the men whocarried them were searching every bush and prying under every rock.Along the middle of the valley six other torches were burning fiftyyards apart. There was one advantage, the torches were pitch-pine andgave a fairish light, but not so much as tarred rope would have done;but it was enough for me to be able to make out the face of the cliff,and I saw a break by which I could get up for a good bit anyhow. It waswhere a torrent came down when the snows were melting, and as soon as Ihad got to the bottom I made straight up. There were rocks piled at itsfoot, and I got to the top of these without being seen.

  "I hadn't got a dozen feet higher when my foot set a boulder rolling,and down it went with a crash. There were shouts below, but I did notstop to listen to what they said, but put up the bed of the torrent at atwo-forty gait. A shot rang out, and another and another, but I wasgetting now above the light of their torches. A hundred feet higher Icame to a stand-still, for the rock rose right up in front of me, andthe water had here come down from above in a fall. This made it a tightplace, you bet. There war no ledge as I could see that I could getalong, and I should have to go down a good bit afore I got to one. Theykept on firing from below, but I felt pretty sure that they could notsee me, for I could hear the bullets striking high against the face ofthe rock that had stopped me.

  "You may bet I was careful how I went down again, and I took my time,for I could see that the men with the torches had halted at the foot ofthe heap of rocks below, not caring much, I expect, to begin to mount,while the horsemen kept on firing, hoping to hear my body come rollingdown; besides, they must have known that with their torches they made apretty sure mark for me. At last I got down to the ledge. It war anarrow one, and for a few yards I had to walk with my face to the rockand my arms spread out, and that, when I knew that at any moment theymight make me out, and their bullets come singing up, warn't by no meanspleasant. In a few yards the ledge got wider and there was room enoughon it for me to lie down. I crawled along for a good bit, and then satdown with my back against the rock and reckoned the matter up. All thetorches war gathered round where I had gone up. Four more men had comedown from the camp on horseback, and five or six on foot with torcheswere running down the valley. They had been searching for me among thebushes higher up, and when they heard the firing had started down tojine the others. The leader was shouting to the men to climb up afterme, but the men didn't seem to see it.

  "'What's the use?' I heard one fellow say; 'he must be chock-full ofbullets long ago. We will go up and find his carcass in the morning.'

  "'But suppose he is not dead, you fool.'

  "'Well, if he ain't dead he would just pick us off one after another aswe went up with torches.'

  "'Well, put your torches out, then. Here, I will go first if you areafraid,' and he jumped from his horse.

  "You can bet your boots that my fingers itched to put a bullet into him.But it warn't to be done; I did not know how far the ledge went orwhether there might be any way of getting off it, and now I had once gotout of their sight it would have been chucking away my life to let themknow whar I lay. So I got up again and walked on a bit farther. I cameon a place where the rock had crumbled enough fo
r me to be able to getup on to the next ledge, and after a lot of climbing up and down I gotto the top in about two hours, and then struck across the hills and camedown at eight o'clock next morning on to the caravan track. I hid uptill evening in case they should come down after me, and next morning Icame up to the caravan just as they were hitching the teams up for astart."

  "You got out of that better than you deserved," Harry said. "I wouldn'thave believed that any man would have played such a fool's trick as togo meddling with the Mormons in their own country without any kind ofreason. It war worse than childishness."

  The other two miners assented vigorously, and Sam said: "Waal, you can'tthink more meanly of me over that business than I do of myself. I havenever been able to make out why I did it, and you may bet it ain't oftenI tells the story. It war a dog-goned piece of foolishness, and, asHarry says, I didn't desarve to get out of it as I did. Still, it ain'tmade me feel any kind of love for Mormons. When about two hundred shotshave been fired at a man it makes him feel kinder like as if he wargoing to pay some of them back when he gets the chance, and you may betI mean to."

  "Jee-rusalem!"

  The exclamation was elicited by the fall of a heavy mass of snow on tothe fire, over which the kettle had just begun to boil. The tripod fromwhich it hung was knocked over. A cloud of steam filled the place, andthe party all sprung to their feet to avoid being scalded.

  "It might have waited a few minutes longer," Jerry grumbled, "then weshould have had our tea comfortable. Now the fire is out and the wateris spilt, and we have got to fetch in some more snow; that is the lastlot there was melted."

  "It is all in the day's work, Jerry," Harry said cheerfully, "and it isjust as well we should have something to do. I will fetch the snow in ifthe rest of you will clear the hearth again. It is a nuisance about thesnow, but we agreed that there is no help for it, and we may thank ourstars it is no worse."

  It was not long before the fire was blazing again, but it took some timebefore water was boiling and tea made, still longer before the breadwhich had been soddened by the water from the kettle was fit to eat. Bythis time it was dark. When the meal was over they all turned in for thenight. Tom was just going off to sleep, when he was roused by LeapingDog suddenly throwing off his buffalo robe and springing to his feetwith his rifle in his hand.

  "Hist!" he said in a low tone. "Something comes!"

  The men all seized their rifles and listened intently. Presently theyheard a soft step on the snow outside, then there was a snuffing sound.

  "B'ar!" the Indian said.

  A moment later a great head reared itself over the bushes at theentrance. Five rifles rang out, the two Indians reserving their fire;the report was followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall outside.

  "Wait a moment," Harry said sharply, as the others were preparing torush out, "let us make sure he is dead."

  "He is dead enough," Jerry said. "I reckon even a grizzly cannot walkoff with five bullets in his head."

  Harry looked over the screen. "Yes, he is dead enough; anyhow he looksso. Waal, this is a piece of luck." They all stepped out on to theplatform.

  "Is it a grizzly, uncle?" Tom asked excitedly.

  "He is a grizzly, sure enough. You don't want to see his colour to knowthat. Look at his size."

  "Why, he is as big as a cow."

  "Ay, lad, and a big cow too. You go in and make up the fire while we cutoff enough meat for supper."

  The fact that they had eaten a meal but half an hour before, went fornothing; slices of bear-meat were soon frizzling, and as hearty a mealwas eaten as if no food had been tasted since the previous day. The menwere in the highest spirits; the fact that they were out of meat hadbeen the greatest drawback to the prospect of being shut up for perhapsa week, for badly-baked bread is but a poor diet to men accustomed tolive almost exclusively upon meat.

  "What brought the bear down here?" Tom asked.

  "Curiosity at first perhaps, and then hunger," his uncle replied. "Iexpect he was going along on the path above when he saw the light amongthe leaves, and then no doubt he smelt the bread, and perhaps us and thehorses, and came down to see what he could get.

  "Curiosity is a bad fault, Tom. You have had two lessons in that thisevening. Bear in mind that in this part of the world the safest plan isalways to attend strictly to your own business."

  All thought of sleep was for the present dissipated; their pipes wereagain lighted, and it was midnight before they lay down. In the morningthe bear was with some difficulty skinned and cut up, the joints beingleft outside to freeze through. The snow still fell steadily, but thewind had almost died down. Sallying out they cut five or six long poles,and with some difficulty fixed these from above across from the cliff tothe outstanding rock, pushed the bear's-skin across them, and lashed itthere, its bulk being sufficient to cover the space above the fire and aconsiderable portion of their dwelling room.

  After breakfast snow was again melted for the horses, and the work forthe day thus done they seated themselves contentedly round the fire.