l the time into
the heart of the fire, as if he were addressing his remarks to a
salamander.

"Ay, he's a crack shot, as I wos sayin'. One day he fell in with a
grisly bar, an' the brute rushed at him; so he up rifle an' puts a ball
up each nose,"--("I didn't know a grisly had two noses," murmured
March,)--"an' loaded agin', an' afore it comed up he put a ball in each
eye; then he drew his knife an' split it right down the middle from nose
to tail at one stroke, an' cut it across with another stroke; an',
puttin' one quarter on his head, he took another quarter under each arm,
an' the fourth quarter in his mouth, and so walked home to his cave in
the mountains--'bout one hundred and fifty miles off, where he roasted
an' ate the whole bar at one sittin'--bones, hair, an' all!"

This flight was too strong for March. He burst into a fit of laughter,
which called the rusty hinges into violent action and produced a groan.
The laugh and the groan together banished drowsiness, so he turned on
his back, and said--

"Bounce, do you really believe all that?"

Thus pointedly questioned on what he felt to be a delicate point, Bounce
drew a great number of whiffs from the tomahawk ere he ventured to
reply. At length he said--

"Well, to say truth, an' takin' a feelosophical view o' the p'int--I
_don't_. But I b'lieve _some_ of it. I do b'lieve there's some
'xtraord'nary critter in them there mountains--for I've lived nigh forty
years, off and on, in these parts, an' I've always obsarved that in this
wurld w'enever ye find _anythin'_ ye've always got _somethin'_. Nobody
never got hold o' somethin' an' found afterwards that it wos nothin'.
So I b'lieve there's somethin' in this wild man--how much I dun know."

Bounce followed up this remark with a minute account of the reputed
deeds of this mysterious creature, all of which were more or less
marvellous; and at length succeeded in interesting his young companion
so deeply, as to fill him with a good deal of his own belief in at least
a wild _something_ that dwelt in the heart of the Rocky Mountains.

After a great deal of talk, and prolonged discussion, Bounce concluded
with the assertion that "he'd give his best rifle, an' that was his only
one, to see this wild man."

To which Marston replied--

"I'll tell you what it is, Bounce, I _will_ see this wild man, if it's
in the power of bones and muscles to carry me within eyeshot of him.
Now, see if I don't."

Bounce no