etermination of remaining where he
was, at least until the snow should leave the ground.

He felt great relief even when this hopeless course was decided
upon, and set about making himself an encampment with some degree of
cheerfulness. When he had completed this task, he took his rifle, and
leaving Charlie picketed in the centre of a dell, where the long, rich
grass rose high above the snow, went off to hunt.

On turning a rocky point his heart suddenly bounded into his throat,
for there, not thirty yards distant, stood a huge grizzly bear!

Yes, there he was at last, the monster to meet which the young hunter
had so often longed--the terrible size and fierceness of which he had
heard so often spoken about by the old hunters. There it stood at
last; but little did Dick Varley think that the first time he should
meet with his foe should be when alone in the dark recesses of the
Rocky Mountains, and with none to succour him in the event of the
battle going against him. Yes, there was one. The faithful Crusoe
stood by his side, with his hair bristling, all his formidable teeth
exposed, and his eyes glaring in their sockets. Alas for poor Crusoe
had he gone into that combat alone! One stroke of that monster's paw
would have hurled him dead upon the ground.

CHAPTER XVII.

_Dick's first fight with a grizzly_--_Adventure with a deer_--_A
surprise_.

There is no animal in all the land so terrible and dangerous as the
grizzly bear. Not only is he the largest of the species in America,
but he is the fiercest, the strongest, and the most tenacious of
life--facts which are so well understood that few of the western
hunters like to meet him single-handed, unless they happen to be
first-rate shots; and the Indians deem the encounter so dangerous that
to wear a collar composed of the claws of a grizzly bear of his own
killing is counted one of the highest honours to which a young warrior
can attain.

The grizzly bear resembles the brown bear of Europe, but it is larger,
and the hair is long, the points being of a paler shade. About the
head there is a considerable mixture of gray hair, giving it the
"grizzly" appearance from which it derives its name. The claws are
dirty white, arched, and very long, and so strong that when the animal
strikes with its paw they cut like a chisel. These claws are not
embedded in the paw, as is the case with the cat, but always project
far beyond the hair, thus giving to the foot a ver