iculty, but he who was
farthest away was fairly caught in it, and night overtaking him, he was
compelled to resort to the method described in the preceding paragraph.
Luckily, he soon came up with a superannuated bull that had been
abandoned by the herd; so he killed him, took out his viscera and
crawled inside the empty carcass, where he lay comparatively comfortable
until morning broke, when the storm had passed over and the sun shone
brightly. But when he attempted to get out, he found himself a prisoner,
the immense ribs of the creature having frozen together, and locked him
up as tightly as if he were in a cell. Fortunately, his companions, who
were searching for him, and firing their rifles from time to time,
heard him yell in response to the discharge of their pieces, and thus
discovered and released him from the peculiar predicament into which he
had fallen.

At another time, several years before the acquisition of New Mexico by
the United States, two old trappers were far up on the Arkansas near the
Trail, in the foot-hills hunting buffalo, and they, as is generally the
case, became separated. In an hour or two one of them killed a fat young
cow, and, leaving his rifle on the ground, went up and commenced to skin
her. While busily engaged in his work, he suddenly heard right behind
him a suppressed snort, and looking around he saw to his dismay a
monstrous grizzly ambling along in that animal's characteristic gait,
within a few feet of him.

In front, only a few rods away, there happened to be a clump of scrubby
pines, and he incontinently made a break for them, climbing into the
tallest in less time than it takes to tell of it. The bear deliberately
ate a hearty meal off the juicy hams of the cow, so providentially
fallen in his way, and when he had satiated himself, instead of going
away, he quietly stretched himself alongside of the half-devoured
carcass, and went to sleep, keeping one eye open, however, on the
movements of the unlucky hunter whom he had corralled in the tree. In
the early evening his partner came to the spot, and killed the impudent
bear, that, being full of tender buffalo meat, was sluggish and unwary,
and thus became an easy victim to the unerring rifle; when the unwilling
prisoner came down from his perch in the pine, feeling sheepish enough.
The last time I saw him he told me he still had the bear's hide, which
he religiously preserved as a memento of his foolishness in separating
him