e while filling the forest with the echo of his howlings, suddenly
imitated my example. This silence was more terrible, if possible, than
the clatter and crash of his movements through the brushwood, for now
I did not know from what direction to expect his attack. Moments
passed with me like hours. After a lapse of time which I cannot
estimate, the beast gave a spring into the thicket and ran screaming
into the forest. My deliverance was effected.

[Illustration: The Mountain Lion.]

Had strength permitted, I should have retained my perch till daylight,
but with the consciousness of escape from the jaws of the ferocious
brute came a sense of overpowering weakness which almost palsied me,
and made my descent from the tree both difficult and dangerous.
Incredible as it may seem, I lay down in my old bed, and was soon lost
in a slumber so profound that I did not awake until after daylight.
The experience of the night seemed like a terrible dream; but the
broken limbs which in the agony of consternation I had thrown from the
tree, and the rifts made in fallen foliage by my visitant in his
circumambulations, were too convincing evidences of its reality. I
could not dwell upon my exposure and escape without shuddering, and
reflecting that probably like perils would often occur under less
fortunate circumstances, and with a more fatal issue. I wondered what
fate was in reserve for me--whether I should ultimately sink from
exhaustion and perish of starvation, or become the prey of some of the
ferocious animals that roamed these vast fastnesses. My thoughts then
turned to the loved ones at home. They could never know my fate, and
would indulge a thousand conjectures concerning it, not the least
distressing of which would be that I had been captured by a band of
hostile Sioux, and tortured to death at the stake.

I was roused from this train of reflections by a marked change in the
atmosphere. One of those dreary storms of mingled snow and rain,
common to these high latitudes, set in. My clothing, which had been
much torn, exposed my person to its "pitiless peltings." An easterly
wind, rising to a gale, admonished me that it would be furious and of
long duration. None of the discouragements I had met with dissipated
the hope of rejoining my friends; but foreseeing the delay, now
unavoidable, I knew that my escape from the wilderness must be
accomplished, if at all, by my own unaided exertions. This thought was
terribly afflict