h going fast. He was surprised that Crusoe did not come to his
rescue, and once he cleared his mouth and whistled to him; but as the
deer gave him another pounding for this, he didn't attempt it again.
He now for the 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 bearskin by the camp-fire 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 XVIII.

_A surprise, and a piece of good news--The fur-traders--Crusoe proved,
and the Peigans pursued_.

Dick's first and most na