This made them wary. They must have taken me for a
Salamander or some fire-spitting monster; at all events, although some
of the bolder ones every now and then came and had a look at me, licking
their jaws and wishing they could eat me up, the singeing I gave their
whiskers quickly drove them away, while the greater number kept at a
respectful distance. At last when morning light returned, I started up,
and uttering shouts and shrieks with the most hearty good-will, fired
again at the foremost, and, as before, laying about me with my pole, put
the remainder to an ignominious flight. I had not enjoyed a quiet night
certainly, but I was much warmer than I should have been had my fire
gone out.

"It's an ill wind that blows no one good."

"Good may be got out of everything," I say.

So the wolves said, when they supped of their old grandsire instead of
me. Having also enjoyed a warm breakfast, I shouldered my rifle and
pushed on as fast as my legs could carry me to overtake my friends. I
was extremely anxious to get up with them before they descended into the
plains; for as I supposed that the snow would be melting there, I knew
that I might have great difficulty in following their traces. I pushed
on till noon, and then stopped but ten minutes to dine, or rather to
rest and chew a bit of bear's flesh. That done, on again I went as fast
as before. I did not at all like the notion of having to camp out by
myself, for I was so sleepy that I fancied I might be torn limb from
limb by wolves or a bear without awaking; and certainly I might have
been frozen to death. The evening came, the sun set, and though I was
on the track of my friends, I could see nothing of them. Still I pushed
on, because I might overtake them before dark; but at length the shades
of night crept up the mountain's sides, and for what I could tell I
still might be many hours distant from them. I could see very little
way ahead; but I had arrived at a part of the mountain-range where there
were some very ugly-looking precipices on either side of the pass, and I
thought it more than likely, should I push on, that I might slip down
one of them, when very probably I should not be brought up till I had
had a jump of a couple of thousand feet or so.

I could find no dry wood for a fire; but there were plenty of stones,
and a superabundance of snow and a big overhanging rock near at hand.
I, therefore, built myself a hut with the stones and snow,