first time bethought him of his knife, and quietly drew it from his
belt; but the deer observed the motion, and was on him again in a
moment. Dick, however, sprang up on his left elbow, and, making several
desperate thrusts upward, succeeded in stabbing the animal to the heart.

Rising and shaking the snow from his garments, he whistled loudly to
Crusoe, and, on listening, heard him whining piteously. He hurried to
the place whence the sound came, and found that the poor dog had fallen
into a deep pit or crevice in the rocks, which had been concealed from
view by a crust of snow, and he was now making frantic but unavailing
efforts to leap out.

Dick soon freed him from his prison by means of his belt, which he let
down for the dog to grasp, and then returned to camp with as much
deer-meat as he could carry. Dear meat it certainly was to him, for it
had nearly cost him his life, and left him all black and blue for weeks
after. Happily no bones were broken, so the incident only confined him
a day to his encampment.

Soon after this the snow fell thicker than ever, and it became evident
that an unusually early winter was about to set in among the mountains.
This was a terrible calamity, for, if the regular snow of winter set in,
it would be impossible for him either to advance or retreat.

While he was sitting on his bear-skin by the campfire one day, thinking
anxiously what he should do, and feeling that he must either make the
attempt to escape, or perish miserably in that secluded spot, a strange,
unwonted sound struck upon his ear, and caused both him and Crusoe to
spring violently to their feet and listen. Could he be dreaming? it
seemed like the sound of human voices. For a moment he stood with his
eyes rivetted on the ground, his lips apart and his nostrils distended,
as he listened with the utmost intensity. Then he darted out and
bounded round the edge of a rock which concealed an extensive but narrow
valley from his view, and there, to his amazement, he beheld a band of
about a hundred human beings advancing on horseback slowly through the
snow!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A SURPRISE AND A PIECE OF GOOD NEWS--THE FUR-TRADERS--CRUSOE PROVED, AND
THE PEIGANS PURSUED.

Dick's first and most natural impulse, on beholding this band, was to
mount his horse and fly, for his mind naturally enough recurred to the
former rough treatment he had experienced at the hands of Indians. On
second thoughts, however, h