BATH INSIDE
THE BEAR--OUR DANGEROUS PREDICAMENT--HOW TO GET OUT OF THE RAVINE--SAM
APPEARS ABOVE US--WE CLIMB OUT WITH NO LITTLE DIFFICULTY--THE BEAR'S
CAVE--HAVING HAD ENOUGH BEAR-HUNTING WE RETURN HOME--FIND A NATIVE
VISITOR, WHO INFORMS US THAT WE MAY EXPECT SOON AN ATTACK FROM AN
OVERWHELMING FORCE OF RED-SKINS.

We were all standing round the carcase of the huge she-bear, when it and
the surrounding mass of snow began perceptibly to glide onwards over the
edge of the terrific precipice. I have seen a poor fellow sitting in a
boat, utterly beyond his control, gliding rapidly down the rapids
towards the falls of Niagara. Quicker and quicker it has moved, till,
reaching the edge, it has seemed to hover for a moment, as if unwilling
to make the fatal plunge, and then over it has leaped with the rapidity
of lightning, and it and its hapless occupant have been for ever hid
from human sight. I felt at the moment very much the same sort of
sensations which I can fancy the occupant of the boat must have
experienced, as the mass of snow, increasing in speed, rapidly neared
the precipice. From where I was, I had not the slightest power to leap
off it. I fancied that all my companions were in a similar condition.

There is an eastern story, in which a man puts his head into a basin of
water, and during the few seconds he holds it there, he finds that he
has gone through the adventures of a lifetime. I do not think that many
seconds could have passed from the moment that the snow began to move,
till Short and I, and the rest, found ourselves, with the body of the
bear, rolling over and over, and bounding from rock to rock, amid
confusing heaps of snow, down into the bottom of the glen. How I am
alive to tell the tale I do not know, and that fact makes people listen
to me with no small amount of incredulity. I was more blinded, stunned,
and confused than I had ever been in my life before, and each bound I
made I thought would knock the breath out of me; but as for reaching the
bottom, I never expected to do that--at all events alive. Now I got a
kick from one of my companions in misfortune; now I was knocked against
the hairy carcase of the bear; now I was almost suffocated with the
overwhelming masses of snow which were showered around me. One thing I
own--I did not just then think much about anybody else; I could not help
anybody, and I knew that no mortal could help me. Down I went, as I was
saying, bounding away