, snow above, below, and round me. At last I was
quiet. I opened my eyes--I was under the snow--I felt a suffocating
sensation.

"After having got thus far without broken limbs, it won't do to have the
breath squeezed out of my body for want of exertion," said I to myself,
working away with arms and shoulders, till, as a chicken cracks the
shell of its egg, I broke through the covering of snow which was above
me, and once more I popped my head into daylight. I was in the midst of
a sea of snow, the hind paw of the big bear was close to me, so I hoped
that friend Short was not far-off, while I could make out several of my
other companions struggling up through the snow around us. High above
us towered the cliffs, and it seemed indeed wonderful that any of us
could come down such a height alive.

There is a Greek fable I remember reading as a boy at school, of the
ground being sown with teeth, and out of it coming armed men. I cannot
help thinking that we must have looked very much like those ready-made
heroes, as I and my companions struggled up out of the snow. Elihu
Ragget was the first who joined me. Sam Short did not appear; I told
Elihu that I thought he must be near--probably under the bear, and that
if not released, he would certainly be smothered. So, without a word we
set to work with our hands, shovelling out the snow as well as we could.
We thought, as we worked away, that we heard a groan. This made us
redouble our exertions to release our friend. We had not been a minute
at work, when a shout reached our ears, and on our looking up, there
appeared the very man we were in search of, standing on a ledge of
rocks, high above our heads. He seemed unhurt, and he was shouting to
us to ask how we were. We thought, therefore, that we must have been
mistaken as to the groan, when some one asked, "Where is Obed Ragget?"

"Oh, lads, help me!" cried Elihu; the thought that his young brother lay
buried beneath our feet, and that he had not missed him, striking him
with shame.

"Ay, ay," was the answer, as we all set to with even more energy than
before. We dug and dug away round the bear, till at length a man's leg
appeared, and then his body, and in a few seconds the snow was cleared
away, and my friend Obed Ragget was drawn up out of the snow. But we
gazed at him with sorrow, for not a spark of life appeared in him. The
rest were going to give him up as dead, but I entreated them not to
despair. I e