at night. They slept usually under a tent, or
sometimes, on their longer expeditions in that direction, at the
bark hut. Dick made a point of this, as he resolved that Albert
should have no relapse. He could not see any danger of such a
catastrophe, but he felt that another year of absolutely fresh
and pure mountain air, breathed both night and day, would put his
brother beyond all possible danger.

The life that both led even in the summer was thoroughly
hardening. They bathed every morning, if in the tent by Castle
Howard, in the torrent, the waters of which were always icy,
flowing as they did from melting snows on the highest peaks.
They swam often in the lake, which was also cold always, and at
one of the hot springs they hollowed out a pool, where they could
take a hot bath whenever they needed it.

The game increased in the valley as usual toward autumn, and they
replenished their stores of jerked meat. They had spared their
ammunition entirely throughout the summer and now they used it
only on buffalo, elk, and mule deer. They were fortunate enough
to catch several big bears in their huge dead falls, and, with
very little expenditure of cartridges, they felt that they could
open their second winter as well equipped with food as they had
been when they began the first. They also put a new bark
thatching on the roof of Castle Howard, and then felt ready for
anything that might come.

"Rain, hail, sleet, snow, and ice, it's all the same to us," said
Dick.

They did not resume their trapping until October came, as they
knew that the furs would not be in good condition until then.
They merely made a good guess that it was October. They had
long since lost all count of days and months, and took their
reckoning from the change of the foliage into beautiful reds
and yellows and the increasing coldness of the air.

It proved to be a cold but not rainy autumn, a circumstance that
favored greatly their trapping operations. They had learned much
in the preceding winter from observation and experience, and now
they put it to practice. They knew many of the runways or paths
frequented by the animals, and now they would place their traps
in these, concealing them as carefully as possible, and, acting
on an idea of Albert's, they made buckskin gloves for themselves,
with which they handled the traps, in order to leave, if
possible, no human odor to warn the wary game. Such devices as
this and the more skillf