A BAD TIME
"Even to me," Harry went on, after refilling and lighting his pipe, "it
did not seem long before the chief was back. He brought a heavy load,
for besides the rifles and bear's flesh he carried on his back a big
faggot of brushwood. After laying that down he searched among the rocks,
and presently set to work to dig out the snow and earth between two big
blocks, and was not long before he scooped out with his tomahawk a hole
big enough for the two of us to lie in comfortably. He laid the
bear's-skin down in this, then he carried me to it and helped me in and
then put the robes over me; and a snugger place you would not want to
lie in.
"It was about ten feet below the level of the crest of the heap of
rocks, and of course on the upper side, so that directly the red-skins
made their appearance he could help me up to the top. That the two of us
could keep the Utes back I did not doubt; we had our rifles, and the
chief carried a revolver as well as I did. After they had once caught a
glimpse of the sort of place we were on, I did not think they would
venture into the ravine, for they would have lost a dozen men before
they got to the mound. I had looked round while the chief was away, and
I saw that a hundred yards or so higher up, the ravine came to an end,
the sides closing in, so there was no fear of our being attacked from
there. What I was afraid of was that the Indians might be able to get up
above and shoot down on us, though whether they could or not depended on
the nature of the ground above, and of course I could not see beyond the
edge of the rocks.
"But even if they could not get up in the daylight, they could crawl up
at night and finish us, or they could camp down at the mouth of the
ravine and starve us out, for there was no chance of our climbing the
sides, even if my leg had been all right. I was mighty sorry for the
chief. He had just thrown his life away, and it must come to the same in
the end, as far as I was concerned. Even now he could get away if he
chose, but I knew well enough it weren't any good talking to him. So I
lay there, just listening for the crack of his rifle above. He would
bring down the first man that came in, sartin, and there would be plenty
of time after that to get me up beside him, for they would be sure to
have a long talk before they made any move. I did not expect them until
late in the afternoon, and hoped it might be getting dark before they
got down into the valley. There had been a big wind sweeping down it
since the snow had fallen, and though it had drifted deep along the
sides, the bottom was for the most part bare. I noticed that the chief
had picked his way carefully, and guessed that, as they would have no
reason for thinking we were near, they might not take up the trail till
morning. Of course they would find our fire and the dead bear, or all
that there was left of him, and they would fancy we had only stopped to
take a meal and had gone on again. They would see by the fire that we
had left pretty early in the day. I heard nothing of the chief until it
began to get dark; then he came down to me.
"'Leaping Horse will go out and scout,' he said. 'If Utes not come soon,
will come back here; if they come, will watch down at mouth of valley
till he sees Utes go to sleep.' 'Well, chief,' I said; 'at any rate you
may as well take this robe; one is enough to sleep with in this hole,
and I shall be as snug as a beaver wrapped up in mine. Half your hunting
shirt is gone, and you will find it mighty cold standing out there.'
"In an hour he came back again. 'Utes come,' he said. 'Have just lighted
fire and going to cook. No come tonight. Leaping Horse has good news for
his brother. There are no stars.'
"That is good news indeed,' I said. 'If it does but come on to snow
to-night we may carry our scalps back to the settlement yet.'
"'Leaping Horse can feel snow in the air,' he said. 'If it snows before
morning, good; if not, the Utes will tell their children how many lives
the scalps of the Englishman and the Seneca cost.'
"The chief lay down beside me. I did not get much sleep, for my leg was
hurting me mightily. From time to time he crawled out, and each time he
returned saying, 'No snow.' I had begun to fear that when it came it
would be too late. It could not have been long before daybreak when he
said, as he crawled in: 'The Great Manitou has sent snow. My brother can
sleep in peace.' An hour later I raised myself up a bit and looked out.
It was light now. The air was full of fine snow, and the earth the chief
had scraped out was already covered thickly. I could see as much as
that, though the chief had, when he came in for the last time, drawn the
faggot in after him. I wondered at the time why he did it, but I saw
now. As soon as the snow had fallen a little more it would hide up
altogether the entrance to our hole. Hour after hour passed, and it
became impossible to get even a peep out, for the snow had fallen so
thickly on the leafy end of the brushwood, which was outward, that it
had entirely shut us in. All day the snow kept on, as we could tell from
the lessening light, and by two o'clock only a faint twilight made its
way in.
"'How long do you think we shall be imprisoned here, chief?' I asked.
"'Must not hurry,' he replied. 'There are trees up the valley, and the
Utes may make their camp there and stay till the storm is over. No use
to go out till my brother can walk. Wait till snow is over; then stay
two or three days to give time for Utes to go away. Got bear's flesh to
eat; warm in here, melt snow.' This was true enough, for I was feeling
it downright hot. Just before night came on the chief pushed the end of
his ramrod through the snow and looked out along the hole.
"'Snow very strong,' he said. 'When it is dark can go out if wish.'
"There is not much to tell about the next five days. The snow kept
falling steadily, and each evening after dark the chief went outside for
a short time to smoke his pipe, while I sat at the entrance and smoked
mine, and was glad enough to get a little fresh air. As soon as he came
in again the faggot was drawn back to its place, and we were imprisoned
for another twenty-four hours. One gets pretty tired after a time of
eating raw bear's flesh and drinking snow-water, and you bet I was
pretty glad when the chief, after looking out through a peephole, said
that the snow had stopped falling and the sun was shining. About the
middle of that day he said suddenly: 'I hear voices.'
"It was some time before I heard anything, but I presently made them
out, though the snow muffled them a good deal. They did not seem far
off, and a minute or two later they ceased. We lay there two days
longer, and then even the chief was of opinion that they would have
moved off. My own idea was that they had started the first afternoon
after the snow had stopped falling.
"'Leaping Horse will go out to scout as soon as it is dark,' he said.
'Go to mouth of ravine. If Utes are in wood he will see their fires and
come back again. Not likely come up here again and find his traces.'
"That is what I had been saying for the last two days, for after some of
them had been up, and had satisfied themselves that there was no one in
the gully, they would not be likely to come through the snow again. When
the chief returned after an hour's absence, he told me that the Utes had
all gone. 'Fire cold,' he said; 'gone many hours. Leaping Horse has
brought some dry wood up from their hearth. Can light fire now.' You may
guess it was not long before we had a fire blazing in front of our den,
and I never knew how good bear-steak really was till that evening.
"The next morning the chief took off the splints and rebandaged my leg,
this time putting on a long strip of the bear's skin, which he had
worked until it was perfectly soft while we had been waiting there. Over
this he put on the splints again, and for the first time since that bear
had knocked me off the rock I felt at ease. We stayed there another
fortnight, by the end of which time the bones seemed to have knit pretty
fairly. However, I had made myself a good strong crutch from a straight
branch with a fork at the end, that the chief had cut for me, and I had
lashed a wad of bear's skin in the fork to make it easy. Then we
started, making short journeys at first, but getting longer every day as
I became accustomed to the crutch, and at the end of a week I was able
to throw it aside.
"We never saw a sign of an Indian trail all the way down to the
settlements, and by the time we got there I was ready to start on a
journey again. The chief found plenty of game on the way down, and I
have never had as much as a twinge in my leg since. So you see this
affair ain't a circumstance in comparison. Since then the chief and I
have always hunted together, and the word brother ain't only a mode of
speaking with us;" and he held out his hand to the Seneca, who gravely
placed his own in it.
"That war a tight corner, Harry, and no blamed mistake. Did you ever
find out whether they could have got on the top to shoot down on you?"
"Yes, the chief went up the day after the Utes had left. It was level up
there, and they could have sat on the edge and fired down upon us, and
wiped us out without our having a show."
"And you have never since been to that place you struck the day the Utes
came down, Harry?" Jerry asked. "I have heard you talk of a place you
knew of, just at the edge of the bad lands, off the Utah hills. Were
that it?"
Harry nodded. "I have never been there since. I went with a party into
Nevada the next spring, and last year the Utes were all the time upon
the war-path. I had meant to go down this fall, but the Utes were too
lively, so I struck up here instead; but I mean to go next spring
whether they are quiet or not, and to take my chances, and find out
whether it is only good on the surface and peters out to nothing when
you get in, or whether it is a real strong lode. Ben and Sam, and of
course the chief, will go with me, and Tom here, now he has come out,
and if you like to come we shall be all glad."
"You may count me in," Jerry said, "and I thank you for the offer. I
have had dog-goned bad luck for some time, and I reckon it is about time
it was over. How are you going to share?"
"We have settled that. The chief and I take two shares each as
discoverers. You four will take one share each."
"That is fair enough, Harry. Those are mining terms, and after your
nearly getting rubbed out in finding it, if you and the chief had each
taken three shares there would have been nothing for us to grunt at.
They are a 'tarnal bad lot are the Utes. I reckon they are bad by
nature, but the Mormons have made them worse. There ain't no doubt it's
they who set them on to attack the caravans. They could see from the
first that if this was going to be the main route west there would be so
many coming along, and a lot perhaps settle there, that the Gentiles, as
they call the rest of us, would get too strong for them. What they have
been most afeard of is, that a lot of gold or silver should be found up
in the hills, and that would soon put a stop to the Mormon business.
They have been wise enough to tell the red-skins that if men came in and
found gold there would be such a lot come that the hunting would be all
spoilt. There is no doubt that in some of the attacks made on the
caravans there have been sham Indians mixed up with the real ones.
Red-skins are bad enough, but they are good men by the side of
scoundrels who are false to their colour, and who use Indians to kill
whites. That is one reason I want to see this railway go on till it
jines that on the other side. It will be bad for game, and I reckon in a
few years the last buffalo will be wiped out, but I will forgive it
that, so that it does but break up the Saints as they call themselves,
though I reckon there is about as little of the saint among them as you
will find if you search all creation."
"Right you are, Jerry," Sam Hicks said. "They pretty nigh wiped me out
once, and if Uncle Sam ever takes to fighting them you may bet that I am
in it, and won't ask for no pay."
"How did it come about, Sam?" Jerry asked. "I dunno as I have ever heard
you tell that story."
"Waal, I had been a good bit farther east, and had been doing some
scouting with the troops, who had been giving a lesson to the red-skins
there, that it was best for them to let up on plundering the caravans
going west. We had done the job, and I jined a caravan coming this way.
It was the usual crowd, eastern farmers going to settle west, miners,
and such like. Among them was two waggons, which kept mostly as far
apart from the others as they could. They was in charge of two fellows
who dressed in store clothes, and had a sanctimonious look about them.
There was an old man and a couple of old women, and two or three boys
and some gals. They did not talk much with the rest, but it got about
that they were not going farther than Salt Lake City, and we had not
much difficulty in reckoning them up as Mormons. There ain't no law
perviding for the shooting of Mormons without some sort of excuse, and
as the people kept to themselves and did not interfere with no one,
nothing much was said agin them. On a v'yage like that across the
plains, folks has themselves to attend to, and plenty to do both on the
march and in camp, so no one troubles about any one else's business.
"I hadn't no call to either, but I happened to go out near their waggons
one evening, and saw two or three bright-looking maids among them, and
it riled me to think that they was going to be handed over to some rich
old elder with perhaps a dozen other wives, and I used to feel as it
would be a satisfaction to pump some lead into them sleek-looking
scoundrels who had them in charge. I did not expect that the gals had
any idea what was in store for them. I know them Mormons when they goes
out to get what they call converts, preaches a lot about the prophet,
and a good deal about the comforts they would have in Utah. So much land
for nothing, and so much help to set them up, and all that kind of
thing, but mighty little about polygamy and the chance of their being
handed over to some man old enough to be their father, and without their
having any say in the matter. Howsoever, I did not see as I could
interfere, and if I wanted to interfere I could not have done it;
because all those women believed what they had been taught, and if I a
stranger, and an ill-looking one at that, was to tell them the contrary,
they wouldn't believe a word what I had said. So we went on till we got
within four or five days' journey of Salt Lake City, then one morning,
just as the teams were being hitched up, two fellows rode into camp.
"As we were in Utah now, there weren't nothing curious about that, but I
reckoned them up as two as hard-looking cusses as I had come across for
a long time. After asking a question or two they rode to the Mormon
waggons, and instead of starting with the rest, the cattle was taken out
and they stopped behind. Waal, I thought I would wait for a bit and see
what they were arter. It weren't no consarn of mine noways, but I knew I
could catch up the waggons if I started in the afternoon, and I
concluded that I would just wait; so I sat by the fire and smoked. When
the caravan had gone on the Mormons hitched up their cattle again. They
were not very far away from where I was sitting, and I could see one of
the men in black pointing to me as he talked with the two chaps who had
just jined them. With that the fellow walked across to where I was
sitting.
"'Going to camp here?' says he.
"'Waal,' I says, 'I dunno, as I haven't made up my mind about it. Maybe
I shall, maybe I sha'n't.'
"'I allow it would be better for you to move on.'
"'And I allow,' says I, 'it would be better for you to attend to your
own affairs.'
"'Look here,' says he, 'I hear as you have been a-spying about them
waggons.'
"'Then,' says I, 'whosoever told you that, is an all-fired liar, and you
tell him so from me.'
"I had got my hand on the butt of my Colt, and the fellow weakened.
"'Waal,' he said, 'I have given you warning, that is all.'
"'All right,' says I, 'I don't care none for your warnings; and I would
rather anyhow be shot down by white skunks dressed up as red-skins, than
I would have a hand in helping to fool a lot of innercent women.'
"He swore pretty bad at this, but I could see as he wasn't real grit,
and he went off to the waggons. There was considerable talk when he got
there, but as the Mormons must have known as I had been a scout, and had
brought a lot of meat into the camp on the way, and as the chap that
came across must have seen my rifle lying handy beside me, I guess they
allowed that I had better be left alone. So a bit later the waggons
started, and as I expected they would, went up a side valley instead of
going on by the caravan route. The fellow had riz my dander, and after
sitting for a bit I made up my mind I would go after 'em. I had no
particular motive, it wur just out of cussedness. I was not going to be
bluffed from going whar I chose. This air a free country, and I had as
much right to go up that valley as they had."
"I should have thought yer had had more common sense, Sam Hicks," Jerry
said reproachfully, "than to go a-mixing yourself up in a business in
which you had no sort of consarn. Ef one of them women had asked you to
help her, or if you had thought she was being taken away agin her will,
you or any other man would have had a right to take a hand in the game;
but as it was, you war just fooling with your life to interfere with
them Mormons in their own country."
"That is so, Jerry, and I ain't a word to say agin it. It war just a
piece of cussedness, and I have asked myself forty-eleven times since,
what on arth made me make such a blame fool of myself. Afore that fellow
came over to bluff me I hadn't no thought of following the waggons, but
arter that I felt somehow as if he dared me to do it. I reckoned I was
more nor a match for the two fellows who just jined them, and as for the
greasy-faced chaps in black, I did not count them in, one way or the
other. I had no thought of getting the gals away, nor of getting into
any muss with them if they left me alone. It was just that I had got a
right to go up that valley or any other, and I was not going to be
bluffed out of it. So I took up my shooting-iron, strapped my blanket
over my shoulder, and started. They war maybe a mile away when I turned
into the valley. I wasn't hungry for a fight, so I didn't keep up the
middle, but just skirted along at the foot of the hill where it did not
seem likely as they would see me. I did not get any closer to them, and
only caught sight of them now and then.
"As far as I could make out there was only one horseman with them, and I
reckoned the other was gone on ahead; looking for a camping-ground
maybe, or going on to one of the Mormon farms to tell them to get things
ready there. What I reckoned on doing, so far as I reckoned at all, was
to scout up to them as soon as it got dark and listen to their talk, and
try to find out for certain whether the women war goin' willing. Then I
thought as I would walk straight up to their fires and just bluff those
four men as they tried to bluff me. Waal, they went on until late in the
afternoon, unhitched the cattle, and camped. I waited for a bit, and now
that I war cooled down and could look at the thing reasonable, I allowed
to myself that I had showed up as a blamed fool, and I had pretty well
made up my mind to take back tracks and go down the valley, when I heard
the sound of some horses coming down fast from the camp.
"Then the thought that I was a 'tarnal fool came to me pretty strong,
you bet. One of those fellows had ridden on and brought down some of the
Regulators, as we used to call them in the mining camps, but I believe
the Mormons call them Destroying Angels, though there is mighty little
of angels about them. I hoped now that they had not caught sight of me
during the day, and that the band were going right down to the waggon
camp; but as I had not taken any particular pains to hide myself, I
reckoned they must have made me out. It war pretty nigh dark, and as I
took cover behind a bush I could scarce see them as they rode along.
They went down about two hundred yards and then stopped, and I could
hear some of them dismount.
"'You are sure we are far enough?' one said.
"'Yes; I can swear he was higher up than this when we saw him just
before we camped.'
"'If you two fellows hadn't been the worst kind of curs,' a man said
angrily, 'you would have hidden up as soon as you made out he was
following you and shot him as he came along.'
"'I told you,' another voice said, 'that the man is an Indian fighter,
and a dead shot. Suppose we had missed him.'
"'You could not have missed him if you had waited till he was close to
you before you fired; then you might have chucked him in among the
bushes and there would have been an end of it, and we should have been
saved a twenty-mile ride. Now then, look sharp for him and search every
bush. Between us and Johnson's party above we are sure to catch him.'
"I didn't see that, though I did wish the rocks behind had not been so
'tarnal steep. I could have made my way up in the daylight, though even
then it would have been a tough job, but without light enough to see the
lay of the ledges and the best places for getting from one to another,
it was a business I didn't care about. I was just thinking of making
across to the other side of the valley when some horsemen came galloping
back.
"'You stop here, brother Ephraim, and keep your ears well open, as well
as your eyes. You stop fifty yards higher up, Hiram, and the others at
the same distance apart. When the men among the rocks come abreast of
you, Ephraim, ride on and take your place at the other end of the line.
You do the same, Hiram, and so all in turn; I will ride up and down.'
"It was clear they meant business, and I was doubting whether I would
take my chance of hiding or make for the cliff, when I saw a light
coming dancing down from the camp, and knew it was a chap on horseback
with a torch. As he came up the man who had spoken before said: 'How
many torches have you got, brother Williams?'
"'A dozen of them.'
"'Give me six, and take the other six down to the men below. That is
right, I will light one from yours.'
"You may guess that settled me. I had got to git at once, so I began to
crawl off towards the foot of the cliffs. By the time I had got there,
there war six torches burning a hundred yards below, and the men who
carried them were searching every bush and prying under every rock.
Along the middle of the valley six other torches were burning fifty
yards apart. There was one advantage, the torches were pitch-pine and
gave a fairish light, but not so much as tarred rope would have done;
but it was enough for me to be able to make out the face of the cliff,
and I saw a break by which I could get up for a good bit anyhow. It was
where a torrent came down when the snows were melting, and as soon as I
had got to the bottom I made straight up. There were rocks piled at its
foot, and I got to the top of these without being seen.
"I hadn't got a dozen feet higher when my foot set a boulder rolling,
and down it went with a crash. There were shouts below, but I did not
stop to listen to what they said, but put up the bed of the torrent at a
two-forty gait. A shot rang out, and another and another, but I was
getting now above the light of their torches. A hundred feet higher I
came to a stand-still, for the rock rose right up in front of me, and
the water had here come down from above in a fall. This made it a tight
place, you bet. There war no ledge as I could see that I could get
along, and I should have to go down a good bit afore I got to one. They
kept on firing from below, but I felt pretty sure that they could not
see me, for I could hear the bullets striking high against the face of
the rock that had stopped me.
"You may bet I was careful how I went down again, and I took my time,
for I could see that the men with the torches had halted at the foot of
the heap of rocks below, not caring much, I expect, to begin to mount,
while the horsemen kept on firing, hoping to hear my body come rolling
down; besides, they must have known that with their torches they made a
pretty sure mark for me. At last I got down to the ledge. It war a
narrow one, and for a few yards I had to walk with my face to the rock
and my arms spread out, and that, when I knew that at any moment they
might make me out, and their bullets come singing up, warn't by no means
pleasant. In a few yards the ledge got wider and there was room enough
on it for me to lie down. I crawled along for a good bit, and then sat
down with my back against the rock and reckoned the matter up. All the
torches war gathered round where I had gone up. Four more men had come
down from the camp on horseback, and five or six on foot with torches
were running down the valley. They had been searching for me among the
bushes higher up, and when they heard the firing had started down to
jine the others. The leader was shouting to the men to climb up after
me, but the men didn't seem to see it.
"'What's the use?' I heard one fellow say; 'he must be chock-full of
bullets long ago. We will go up and find his carcass in the morning.'
"'But suppose he is not dead, you fool.'
"'Well, if he ain't dead he would just pick us off one after another as
we went up with torches.'
"'Well, put your torches out, then. Here, I will go first if you are
afraid,' and he jumped from his horse.
"You can bet your boots that my fingers itched to put a bullet into him.
But it warn't to be done; I did not know how far the ledge went or
whether there might be any way of getting off it, and now I had once got
out of their sight it would have been chucking away my life to let them
know whar I lay. So I got up again and walked on a bit farther. I came
on a place where the rock had crumbled enough for me to be able to get
up on to the next ledge, and after a lot of climbing up and down I got
to the top in about two hours, and then struck across the hills and came
down at eight o'clock next morning on to the caravan track. I hid up
till evening in case they should come down after me, and next morning I
came up to the caravan just as they were hitching the teams up for a
start."
"You got out of that better than you deserved," Harry said. "I wouldn't
have believed that any man would have played such a fool's trick as to
go meddling with the Mormons in their own country without any kind of
reason. It war worse than childishness."
The other two miners assented vigorously, and Sam said: "Waal, you can't
think more meanly of me over that business than I do of myself. I have
never been able to make out why I did it, and you may bet it ain't often
I tells the story. It war a dog-goned piece of foolishness, and, as
Harry says, I didn't desarve to get out of it as I did. Still, it ain't
made me feel any kind of love for Mormons. When about two hundred shots
have been fired at a man it makes him feel kinder like as if he war
going to pay some of them back when he gets the chance, and you may bet
I mean to."
"Jee-rusalem!"
The exclamation was elicited by the fall of a heavy mass of snow on to
the fire, over which the kettle had just begun to boil. The tripod from
which it hung was knocked over. A cloud of steam filled the place, and
the party all sprung to their feet to avoid being scalded.
"It might have waited a few minutes longer," Jerry grumbled, "then we
should have had our tea comfortable. Now the fire is out and the water
is spilt, and we have got to fetch in some more snow; that is the last
lot there was melted."
"It is all in the day's work, Jerry," Harry said cheerfully, "and it is
just as well we should have something to do. I will fetch the snow in if
the rest of you will clear the hearth again. It is a nuisance about the
snow, but we agreed that there is no help for it, and we may thank our
stars it is no worse."
It was not long before the fire was blazing again, but it took some time
before water was boiling and tea made, still longer before the bread
which had been soddened by the water from the kettle was fit to eat. By
this time it was dark. When the meal was over they all turned in for the
night. Tom was just going off to sleep, when he was roused by Leaping
Dog suddenly throwing off his buffalo robe and springing to his feet
with his rifle in his hand.
"Hist!" he said in a low tone. "Something comes!"
The men all seized their rifles and listened intently. Presently they
heard a soft step on the snow outside, then there was a snuffing sound.
"B'ar!" the Indian said.
A moment later a great head reared itself over the bushes at the
entrance. Five rifles rang out, the two Indians reserving their fire;
the report was followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall outside.
"Wait a moment," Harry said sharply, as the others were preparing to
rush out, "let us make sure he is dead."
"He is dead enough," Jerry said. "I reckon even a grizzly cannot walk
off with five bullets in his head."
Harry looked over the screen. "Yes, he is dead enough; anyhow he looks
so. Waal, this is a piece of luck." They all stepped out on to the
platform.
"Is it a grizzly, uncle?" Tom asked excitedly.
"He is a grizzly, sure enough. You don't want to see his colour to know
that. Look at his size."
"Why, he is as big as a cow."
"Ay, lad, and a big cow too. You go in and make up the fire while we cut
off enough meat for supper."
The fact that they had eaten a meal but half an hour before, went for
nothing; slices of bear-meat were soon frizzling, and as hearty a meal
was eaten as if no food had been tasted since the previous day. The men
were in the highest spirits; the fact that they were out of meat had
been the greatest drawback to the prospect of being shut up for perhaps
a week, for badly-baked bread is but a poor diet to men accustomed to
live almost exclusively upon meat.
"What brought the bear down here?" Tom asked.
"Curiosity at first perhaps, and then hunger," his uncle replied. "I
expect he was going along on the path above when he saw the light among
the leaves, and then no doubt he smelt the bread, and perhaps us and the
horses, and came down to see what he could get.
"Curiosity is a bad fault, Tom. You have had two lessons in that this
evening. Bear in mind that in this part of the world the safest plan is
always to attend strictly to your own business."
All thought of sleep was for the present dissipated; their pipes were
again lighted, and it was midnight before they lay down. In the morning
the bear was with some difficulty skinned and cut up, the joints being
left outside to freeze through. The snow still fell steadily, but the
wind had almost died down. Sallying out they cut five or six long poles,
and with some difficulty fixed these from above across from the cliff to
the outstanding rock, pushed the bear's-skin across them, and lashed it
there, its bulk being sufficient to cover the space above the fire and a
considerable portion of their dwelling room.
After breakfast snow was again melted for the horses, and the work for
the day thus done they seated themselves contentedly round the fire.