to which he could climb; to run, would
only be to provoke pursuit, and he should soon be overtaken. He threw
himself on the ground, therefore, and lay motionless, watching the
movements of the animal with intense anxiety. It continued to advance
until at the foot of the hill, when it turned, and made into the woods,
having probably gorged itself with buffalo flesh. Mr. Crooks made all
haste back to the camp, rejoicing at his escape, and determining never
to stir out again without his rifle. A few days after this circumstance,
a grizzly bear was shot in the neighborhood by Mr. Miller.

As the slaughter of so many buffaloes had provided the party with beef
for the winter, in case they met with no further supply, they now set to
work, heart and hand, to build a comfortable wigwam. In a little while
the woody promontory rang with the unwonted sound of the axe. Some of
its lofty trees were laid low, and by the second evening the cabin was
complete. It was eight feet wide, and eighteen feet long. The walls
were six feet high, and the whole was covered with buffalo skins. The
fireplace was in the centre, and the smoke found its way out by a hole
in the roof.

The hunters were next sent out to procure deer-skins for garments,
moccasins, and other purposes. They made the mountains echo with their
rifles, and, in the course of two days' hunting, killed twenty-eight
bighorns and black-tailed deer.

The party now reveled in abundance. After all that they had suffered
from hunger, cold, fatigue and watchfulness; after all their perils from
treacherous and savage men, they exulted in the snugness and security of
their isolated cabin, hidden, as they thought, even from the prying eyes
of Indian scouts, and stored with creature comforts; and they looked
forward to a winter of peace and quietness, of roasting, and boiling,
and broiling, and feasting upon venison, and mountain mutton, and bear's
meat, and marrow bones, and buffalo humps, and other hunter's dainties,
and of dozing and reposing round their fire, and gossiping over past
dangers and adventures, and telling long hunting stories, until spring
should return; when they would make canoes of buffalo skins and float
themselves down the river.

From such halcyon dreams, they were startled one morning, at daybreak,
by a savage yell. They started tip and seized their rifles. The yell was
repeated by two or three voices. Cautiously peeping out, they beheld,
to their dismay, several