thick gra--"

"If you don't hold your jaw about things like that," Rayburn struck in,
"I'll murder you!"--and there was such fierceness in his voice, and he
truly was such a savage fellow when his anger was up, that Young was
half frightened by his outburst, and so was silent. I must say that I
wish that he had altogether held his tongue; for, somehow, the smell of
mutton and onions and potatoes, all cooking together, was so strong in
my nostrils, and this smell so set to yearning my very hollow inside,
that it was a long while before I could sleep at all; and when I did
sleep, it was to be pursued by dreams of painful hungriness which were
but too surely founded in painful fact. Certainly, it was very
indiscreet in Young, to say the least of it, to make a remark of that
nature at that untoward time.

However, that was the last day that we suffered for want of food. I was
awakened in the very early morning by the sound of a rifle-shot, and
sprang to my feet, brandishing my revolver, with a confused belief in
my sleepy mind that we were attacked by Indians again; and, truly, my
first feeling was one of pleasure at the thought of meeting, even in
deadly combat, with men who were alive.

"It's all right, Professor," Rayburn said. "We're not fighting anybody.
But I've killed a mountain sheep, and if we only can get him we'll have
a solid breakfast, even if we have to eat him raw. He was over on that
point of rock, and he's tumbled down clear into the valley, and the
sooner we get down there and hunt for him the better."

In the bright light of the early morning we could see below us a glad
little valley, in which trees and grass grew, and in the centre of which
was a tiny lake. But what gave as most joy was seeing birds flying over
the face of the water, and half a dozen mountain sheep scampering away
at the sound of Rayburn's shot. Truly, the sight of these live creatures
was the most cheery that ever came to my eyes; and as I beheld them, and
realized that at last we had emerged from the dreary, death-stricken
region in which as it seemed to me we had spent years, a great wave of
happiness rolled in upon and filled my heart. As it was with me, so was
it with the others: who gave sighs of gladness as thus they found
themselves no longer wanderers among the chill shades of ancient death,
but once more moving in the warm living world.

The path, cut out along the mountain-side, went downward by a sharper
grade than tha