ed on a stick and eaten out of our
fingers. That was indeed getting back to nature, but a more dire
misfortune was to befall me the first night. As before stated, we had
pitched our camp beneath the shelter of forest giants. Age after age the
quills had been falling, forming a mould several inches thick. Before
retiring that night I laid my solitary pair of trousers and drawers on
the ground before the fire to dry out by morning. They dried. I awoke in
the middle of the night to find that my last garments had been consumed,
leaving but the waistband of my trousers. The mould slowly dried, the
fire had followed, leaving me about the most forlorn individual that
ever was blessed with white hide. Now that was going back to nature with
a vengeance. In front rushed a roaring, foaming river, and relief was
fifty miles away. But what was I to do, but simply do the best I could
with a shirt and the waist-band of my trousers.

The next day we constructed a shelter of cedar bark in the event of
rain. And now I am going to repeat a story at the risk of being
denounced as a "nature fakir." We had with us a band of dogs, trained
for hunting. There were seventeen, all told, and of every breed, but
with a mixture of bloodhound to give the "staying qualities." We, or
rather I, had borrowed them of settlers living on the river fifty miles
below. They would chase a bear or cougar all day, and if treed, would
remain and bay around the tree until I came. The second night in camp an
immense timber wolf came up close to camp and gave a prolonged howl. The
dogs all broke away, but they came back faster than they went out. The
wolf followed and caught one of them, a large, full-grown dog, and gave
him one bite behind the shoulder. The dog gave one yelp and when we
reached the spot, ten feet from our bed, he was dead. To make sure that
the dog was bitten but once, the next morning I partly skinned him and
found that the ribs were crushed and broken. Now if a timber wolf can
kill a dog with one bite on the back, why not a young caribou at one
bite on the breast? That question I leave to others to solve.

But to return to my forlorn and altogether ridiculous situation. With
needle and thread it would have been an easy matter to manufacture a
pair of buckskin pantaloons such as I had worn in years gone by and
would have welcomed in my present predicament. But needles, thread,
scissors, razor and combs had followed the cooking utensils to the
bott