k all day, and were wearied. This they must have been, to have gone
to sleep with such a discordant howling around them--enough to have kept
an opium-eater awake. Basil was wearied as well as they; and he soon
began to feel what a painful thing it is to keep awake when one is
sleepy. The eyes of the wolves continued to glare upon him from all
sides; but he did not dread them any more, than if they had been so many
hares. There appeared to be a very large pack of them though. The
odoriferous bear-meat had, no doubt, collected all there were for miles
around--in addition to numbers that had been following the trail for
days past. As Basil watched them, he saw they were growing bolder, and
gradually approaching nearer. At length, some of them came upon the
spot, where lay the bones of the bear at some distance out from the
fire. These they attacked at once; and through the dim light Basil
could see them rushing from all quarters to come in for a share. He
could hear the bones cracking under their teeth, and could see them
struggling and worrying the skeleton and each other in a moving mass.
This soon ended. The bones were scraped clean in a twinkling; and the
wolves now left them, and scattered over the ground as before.

"Come," soliloquised Basil, "I must have more light; they may steal a
march upon me;" and he rose up and threw several armfuls of wood upon
the fire, which soon blazed up again, reflecting the yellow eyes of the
wolves in dozens of pairs all around him. This helped to brighten Basil
a little, and keep him awake; but he sat down again by the fire, and
soon became drowsy as before. Every now and then he caught himself
nodding; and, each time, as he shook himself awake, he noticed that the
wolves had ventured nearer to the bear-meat. He could easily have shot
any one of them, and thus drive them off for a time; but he did not wish
either to waste his ammunition, or startle his companions.

As he sat cogitating how he would best keep awake, an idea came into his
head, which caused him to leap to his feet, as if he intended to execute
some purpose.

"I have it now," said he to himself, placing his rifle against a tree.
"I'll get a good nap yet in spite of these filthy yelpers. Strange we
didn't think of the plan before."

He took up a lasso, and, proceeding to the barbecue, which was close by,
commenced laying all the pieces of bear-meat on one end of the rope.
This did not occupy him long; an