hauled him, an' he turned on me as savagerous as ever. But
this time, feeling secure on the mar's back, my narves wur steadier; an'
I shot the bar plum through the skull, which throwed him in his tracks
wi' the blanket wropped about 'im.

"But sich a blanket as that wur then--ay, sich a blanket! I never seed
sich a blanket! Thur wunt a square foot o' it that wan't torn to
raggles. Ah, strangers, you don't know what it are to lose a five-point
Mackinaw; no, that you don't. Cuss the bar!"

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

A BATTLE WITH GRIZZLY BEARS.

As adventure with grizzly bears which had befallen the "captain" was
next related. He had been travelling with a strange party--the
"scalp-hunters,"--in the mountains near Santa Fe, when they were
overtaken by a sudden and heavy fall of snow that rendered farther
progress impossible. The "canon," a deep valley in which they had
encamped, was difficult to get through at any time, but now the path, on
account of the deep soft snow, was rendered impassable. When morning
broke they found themselves fairly "in the trap."

"Above and below, the valley was choked up with snow five fathoms deep.
Vast fissures--_barrancas_--were filled with the drift; and it was
perilous to attempt penetrating in either direction. Two men had
already disappeared.

"On each side of our camp rose the walls of the canon, almost vertical,
to the height of a hundred feet. These we might have climbed had the
weather been soft, for the rock was a trap formation, and offered
numerous seams and ledges; but now there was a coating of ice and snow
upon them that rendered the ascent impossible. The ground had been
frozen hard before the storm came on, although it was now freezing no
longer, and the snow would not bear our weight. All our efforts to get
out of the valley proved idle; and we gave them over, yielding
ourselves, in a kind of reckless despair, to wait for--we scarce knew
what.

"For three days we sat shivering around the fires, now and then casting
looks of gloomy inquiry around the sky. The same dull grey for an
answer, mottled with flakes slanting earthward, for it still continued
to know. Not a bright spot cheered the aching eye.

"The little platform on which we rested--a space of two or three acres--
was still free from the snow-drift, on account of its exposure to the
wind. Straggling pines, stunted and leafless, grew over its surface, in
all about fifty or sixty trees. From t