d, hot-foot, with rifle ready. One
cub drove him waist deep into the river before a ball finished that
young battler. The other men hastened in, summoned by the redoubled
cries for help. The old mother grizzly was standing upon Hugh Glass
and bellowing defiance. The second cub ran. By several volleys they
killed the mother grizzly; then they rolled her off from Trapper Glass
and inspected him, to see what they could do.

"Poor old Hugh! He's a goner--he's nigh et up." That was the verdict.
He certainly looked like a "goner"--all bloody and mangled, with
scarcely an inch of sound skin on his face, body and limbs. He could
not see, he was past speaking, he was unable to stand; he only lay and
dismally groaned.

They washed him and patched him and bound him as best they might, and
took counsel together. They couldn't carry him on; they couldn't send
him back; and they couldn't camp here, waiting for him to get well or
to die; they had to reach the Henry fort at the mouth of the
Yellowstone, with their horses and supplies, before winter.

"If two of you men will stay and nurse Glass, we'll make up a purse to
pay for the loss of your fall hunt," Major Henry proposed.

Trapper Fitzgerald, and a seventeen-year-old who is said to have been
Jim Bridger, agreed to stay with Hugh Glass and nurse him or bury him.
They were given eighty dollars, to cover the beaver fur that they might
miss out on. Major Henry left them and the groaning Hugh, and hastened
with his other men for the Yellowstone.

It was a dangerous and lonely job. They were two (one of them only
seventeen and rather of a greenhorn yet); this was Arikara and Sioux
country; the Arikaras had shown bad hearts; they fought the Sioux and
all friends of the Sioux, the Sioux fought them and all friends of
them; and caught by one band or another, white hunters might fare ill.
Forty dollars was small pay for risking one's scalp. As for risking it
to save a comrade, of course no pay at all was asked. So the money did
not figure.

Old Hugh did not grow better; on the contrary, he seemed to grow worse.
He was a frightful sight. The teeth and claws of the bears had
poisoned him and he was one mass of gaping wounds; lay moaning and
raving until his fever weakened him so that he had no
strength--couldn't swallow nourishment to keep alive and the men had to
sit beside him constantly to brush away the flies.

On the fifth day they gave him up.

"He'll not live t