purpose.

"Sure to," he thought; "and as the fire is not alight they will begin to
hunt for me, and come to my help at last. Of course; they will very
soon find my bonnet." But, even as he thought this, he recalled that it
was not inside the mouth of the defile, but beyond; and his spirits sank
again, for he thought out exactly what happened: that his friends would
come some distance up the ravine in search of him, find no traces, and
go back.

Plenty of ideas suggestive of the means of escape flashed through the
boy's brain as he toiled on.

One was the possibility of climbing up some precipitous part of the
gully as high as he could get, and seating himself there to wait until
the bears were wearied out and left him.

But he gave this idea up for more than one reason.

The bears, he felt, would scent their way right up to the spot where he
began to climb, and he might slip and fall headlong into their hungry
jaws, to be literally chopped up between them as they would chop up a
seal.

Another reason was that the bears might, with all their deliberation of
movement, prove to be far better climbers than he; and, in addition,
supposing they were not, and he got into a safe spot where they could
not reach him, might not they sit down patiently to wait, as wild beasts
will for their food, till, chilled by the cold and utterly wearied out,
he became an easy prey?

That was one of the ideas on which he pondered as he climbed up higher
and higher. The other was as to the possibility of his being able to
reach the very top of the ravine, high up amongst the snow and ice,
where it became blended with the mountain, and, having thus climbed high
enough, begin to descend on the other side of the buttress naturally
formed by one side of the gully. Then he would at every step be getting
nearer and nearer to his friends, who must, he knew, be in search of
him.

This was the idea which gave him hope, and sent a thrill of fresh
strength through his weary frame. A short time before he could only
think of the certainty of the bears running him down at last in their
untiring pursuit, as sooner or later, _if_ he were always getting
farther from help, they were bound to do. Now he could climb on with a
feeling that an end to his sufferings was in sight.

And all this while--how long he could not tell--the bears came steadily
on, never faster, never slower, always in the same steady, untiring
manner, seeming to be perfectly