e, then, lowering himself on his fore paws,
slowly withdrew. He had not gone many paces, before he again returned,
reared himself on his hind legs, and repeated his menace. Day's hand was
still on the arm of his young companion; he again pressed it hard, and
kept repeating between his teeth, "Quiet, boy!--keep quiet!--keep
quiet!"--though the latter had not made a move since his first
prohibition. The bear again lowered himself on all fours, retreated some
twenty yards further, and again turned, reared, showed his teeth, and
growled. This third menace was too much for the game spirit of John Day.
"By Jove!" exclaimed he, "I can stand this no longer," and in an instant
a ball from his rifle whizzed into his foe. The wound was not mortal;
but, luckily, it dismayed instead of enraged the animal, and he
retreated into the thicket.

Day's companion reproached him for not practicing the caution which
he enjoined upon others. "Why, boy," replied the veteran, "caution is
caution, but one must not put up with too much, even from a bear. Would
you have me suffer myself to be bullied all day by a varmint?"

CHAPTER XXVII.

Indian Trail.--Rough Mountain Travelling.--Sufferings From
Hunger and Thirst--Powder River.--Game in Abundance.-A
Hunter's Paradise.--Mountain Peak Seen at a Great Distance.--
One of the Bighorn Chain.--Rocky Mountains.--Extent.--
Appearance.--Height.-The Great American Desert.--Various
Characteristics of the Mountains.--Indian Superstitions
Concerning Them.--Land of Souls.--Towns of the Free and
Generous Spirits--Happy Hunting Grounds.

FOR the two following days, the travellers pursued a westerly course for
thirty-four miles along a ridge of country dividing the tributary waters
of the Missouri and the Yellowstone. As landmarks they guided themselves
by the summits of the far distant mountains, which they supposed to
belong to the Bighorn chain. They were gradually rising into a higher
temperature, for the weather was cold for the season, with a sharp frost
in the night, and ice of an eighth of an inch in thickness.

On the twenty-second of August, early in the day, they came upon the
trail of a numerous band. Rose and the other hunters examined the
foot-prints with great attention, and determined it to be the trail of
a party of Crows, returning from an annual trading visit to the Mandans.
As this trail afforded more commodious travelling, they immediately
s