eard
me, and came hurrying forward, and we were soon warmly shaking hands.

"Ralph, my dear fellow! we feared that you were lost," exclaimed Manley,
"and we have been hunting for you day after day. How haggard you look!
How did you manage to lose us? and what has become of your rifle?"

These and numerous other questions I had briefly to answer. How they had
missed me, they could not very clearly tell. Instead, however, of coming
westward, they had for some time hunted about in the very neighbourhood
where they had at first lost sight of me. At length they reached one of
my camps, and from thence they had followed me up, although they had
been compelled, as I had, to take shelter during the storm.

Of course, they were as much delighted as I was with the extraordinary
region in which we found ourselves; and I could now enjoy an examination
of its wonders far more than I did at first.

We were very anxious to push on, in order to carry relief to our
friends, and to punish the Arrapahas for their audacious raid on our
territory, but that evening we could proceed no farther. We therefore
cut up the deer, and carried as much of its flesh as we required to
camp, where we built a hut, and employed the evening in preparing the
venison for the remainder of our journey--for we had snowy heights to
surmount, where we might be unable to meet with game. An abundant meal
and a night's rest completely set me up; and my friends insisting on
alternately keeping watch, I was allowed to sleep on without
interruption.

I must pass rapidly over the next few days of our journey. We worked our
way along the rugged gorges through which the river forced a passage,
and we had torrents to cross, precipitous mountains to climb, amid
glaciers and masses of snow, where by a false step we should have been
hurled to destruction. But we were mercifully preserved.

Game in these wild regions is scarce, and we were frequently hard
pressed for food. In one of the valleys, at the beginning of this part
of our journey, nowhere was a drop of drinkable water to be found. For
hours we walked on, with bright fountains bubbling up on every side; but
they were scalding hot, or so impregnated with minerals that we dared
not touch them. Our fate promised to be like that of Tantalus: with
water on every side, we were dying of thirst. At length I espied, high
up on the mountain slope, a little green oasis, scarcely larger than a
small dinner-plate. I scrambled