y threw up their arms and pulled down the heavy
coverings from their faces.

"O dear!" said Sam. "Let me freeze to death, but for dear old Ireland's
sake don't smother me. If ye must send word to my mother that I have
been frozen to death or eaten by bears she will believe you, and
survive, but let it never be told that the Irish lad perished in this
country under fur robes and blankets."

This pathetic lament of Sam's brought forth roars of laughter from all
who could understand it.

"What have you to say, Alec?" said Mr Ross.

"Well, the fact is," he replied, "I was feeling about as Sam has
expressed it, only I put it in a different way. My thoughts were: `It
is queer that I should have escaped from the wolves to be suffocated in
this land for the want of fresh air!'"

"What say you, Frank. We may as well hear from all."

His answer was: "Well, as I lay there on that contracted place, and the
half-smothery sensation began to make life miserable, I remembered some
of the lessons we were taught at school about requiring so many cubic
feet of fresh air, and began to wonder if such laws were obsolete out
here."

With a little more freedom the boys were again tucked in, and it was not
long before they were sound asleep.

Memotas, the guide, rolled himself up in a woven rabbit skin robe, which
was made out of a hundred and twenty skins, sixty being the warp and
sixty the woof. His place was next to Frank. Then the other Indians,
in their blankets, when they had finished their smoking, laid down
wherever there was room. These hardy natives do not wear half of the
clothing by day that white people do, neither do they require such warm
beds at night.

The only disturbance in the night was caused by Sam. He set up a great
howling, which caused the guide to spring up in a hurry to see what was
the matter. In the morning, when Sam was questioned as to his troubles
in the night, he said he was dreaming that he was sliding down one of
the Rocky Mountains with an elephant after him, and just as he reached
the bottom the elephant tumbled on him, and there he lay yelling for
help, until at length some one came and drove the elephant away.

This was too much for even the sedate, clever Memotas, and as Mr Ross
noticed his hearty laugh, as a thing so unusual, he said:

"Come, Memotas, you must surely know something about this."

"Yes," he answered, "I saw the elephant. It was Spitfire, his dog. I
heard Alec moan