w
even if it were for days.

"And I thought it so glorious to be always daylight and sunshine," said
Steve. Oh, if it would only come on now the blackest, darkest night
ever known, so that he could take advantage of the many hiding-places he
could see right and left, and crawl into one of them till the bears had
passed!

He looked back just as this idea crossed his mind, and once more a chill
of dread came over him. For the defile was a little more open at the
top just then, so that he could see the actions of the bears plainly as
they came on some sixty yards behind; and he grasped the knowledge now
that they were not hunting him by sight, but by scent, and that though,
as a rule, they came along with their noses in the air, every now and
then they lowered their muzzles and snuffled eagerly about some block of
stone, uttering low, pig-like grunts.

"Why, that's where my hot, moist hands touched," said Steve in dismay.
"Darkness would be of no use if they hunt like that."

For some minutes now the boy's legs felt heavy and began to drag, his
breath came short, and the feeling of dread rose round him as if it were
water in which he was about to drown.

But this sensation did not last. A glance back showed that, if
anything, he was farther in advance than before, and, taking heart at
this, he pressed on, leaping little gaps, climbing over rocks, and
descending at times to where the little stream trickled when the ground
was more level.

All this while the fugitive was conscious that he was ascending, the
ravine being, as it were, a huge gash riven in the mountain-side. And
this knowledge that he was ascending would have depressed his spirits
once more had he not set his teeth and tried manfully to keep before him
the one idea that he must and would escape.

The depressing sensation was caused by the thought that sooner or later
he would come to the end of the stones and rocks and reach the snow;
then, higher up the mountain-side, come upon the ice itself, where the
bears would be quite in their element and rapidly run him down.

"But they have not done that yet," muttered Steve, as a look back
reassured him; and he steadily went on walking and climbing.

He knew that his friends must have reached the bottom of the coal cliff,
and be wondering why he had run on.

"They'll be sure to guess it was to light a fire," he said; but as he
said it he wondered whether they would find the place he had chosen for
the