but so shy that none of
them could be approached. Another day's failure would place our lives
in a perilous situation indeed; and as these thoughts passed through our
minds, we gazed on each other with looks that betokened apprehension and
alarm. The bright blaze of the camp-fire--for the cold had compelled us
to kindle one--no longer lit up a round of joyful faces. It shone upon
checks haggard with hunger and pallid with fear. There was no story for
the delighted listener--no adventure to be related. We were no longer
the historians, but the real actors in a drama--a drama whose
_denouement_ might be a fearful one.

As we sat gazing at each other, in hopes of giving or receiving some
morsel of comfort and encouragement, we noticed old Ike silently glide
from his place by the fire, and after a whisper to us to remain silent,
crawl off on his hands and knees. He had seen something doubtless, and
hence his singular conduct. In a few minutes his prostrate form was
lost in the darkness, and for some time we saw or heard no more of him.
At length we were startled by the whip-like crack of the guide's rifle,
and fancying it might be Indians, each sprang up in some alarm and
seized his gun. We were soon reassured, however, by seeing the upright
form of the trapper as he walked deliberately back towards the
camp-fire, and the blaze revealed to us a large whitish object dangling
by his side and partly dragging along the ground.

"Hurrah!" cried one, "Ike has killed game."

"A deer--an antelope," suggested several.

"No-o," drawled Redwood. "'Taint eyther, but I guess we won't quarrel
with the meat. I could eat a raw jackass jest about now."

Ike came up at this moment, and we saw that his game was no other than a
prairie-wolf. Better that than hunger, thought all of us; and in a
brace of seconds the wolf was suspended over the fire, and roasting in
the hide.

We were now more cheerful, and the anticipation of such an odd viand for
supper, drew jokes from several of the party. To the trappers such a
dish was nothing new, although they were the only persons of the party
who had partaken of it. But there was not one fastidious palate
present, and when the "wolf-mutton" was broiled, each cleaned his joint
or his rib with as much _gout_ as if he had been picking the bones of a
pheasant.

Before the supper was ended the wolf-killer made a second _coup_,
killing another wolf precisely as he had done the former; and