to have left the locality altogether.
During this period, Dick, and Crusoe, and Charlie had many excursions
together, and the silver rifle full many a time sent death to the
heart of bear, and elk, and buffalo; while, indirectly, it sent joy
to the heart of man, woman, and child in camp, in the shape of juicy
steaks and marrow-bones. Joe and Henri devoted themselves almost
exclusively to trapping beaver, in which pursuit they were so
successful that they speedily became wealthy men, according to
backwood notions of wealth.

With the beaver that they caught they purchased from Cameron's store
powder and shot enough for a long hunting expedition, and a couple
of spare horses to carry their packs. They also purchased a large
assortment of such goods and trinkets as would prove acceptable to
Indians, and supplied themselves with new blankets, and a few pairs of
strong moccasins, of which they stood much in need.

Thus they went on from day to day, until symptoms of the approach of
winter warned them that it was time to return to the Mustang Valley.
About this time an event occurred which totally changed the aspect
of affairs in these remote valleys of the Rocky Mountains, and
precipitated the departure of our four friends, Dick, Joe, Henri, and
Crusoe. This was the sudden arrival of a whole tribe of Indians.
As their advent was somewhat remarkable, we shall devote to it the
commencement of a new chapter.

CHAPTER XXIII.

_Savage sports--Living cataracts--An alarm--Indians and their
doings--The stampede--Charlie again_.

One day Dick Varley was out on a solitary hunting expedition near the
rocky gorge where his horse had received temporary burial a week or
two before. Crusoe was with him, of course. Dick had tied Charlie to a
tree, and was sunning himself on the edge of a cliff, from the top of
which he had a fine view of the valley and the rugged precipices that
hemmed it in.

Just in front of the spot on which he sat, the precipices on the
opposite side of the gorge rose to a considerable height above him, so
that their ragged outlines were drawn sharply across the clear sky.
Dick was gazing in dreamy silence at the jutting rocks and dark
caverns, and speculating on the probable number of bears that dwelt
there, when a slight degree of restlessness on the part of Crusoe
attracted him.

"What is't, pup?" said he, laying his hand on the dog's broad back.

Crusoe looked the answer, "I don't know, Dick, but