e on the watch, and would give us timely notice. This was
satisfactory, for, after our bear-hunting expedition, I, for one, was
very glad to get some rest. Few people have ever slept sounder than I
did on that night for a few hours, notwithstanding all the bustle and
noise going on in the camp.

By the evening, as Laban had promised, everything was ready for our
departure. This night it was judged prudent that scouts should be sent
out to watch for an enemy, and Obed, Elihu, Sam, Noggin, and I, with a
few others, were appointed to that duty by Laban. He had been chosen
leader and dictator, and we were all bound implicitly to obey him. We
scouts, with our rifles in hand, started away together, two and two.
Obed was with me. With the snow on the ground, and a clear sky in those
regions, it is never dark, and our difficulty, as we advanced, was to
conceal ourselves from any lurking foe. Still we worked our way on,
taking advantage of every mound, or the tops of trees, or bushes
appearing above the white smooth plain. It had been agreed that, as
soon as we should see an enemy, we were to retreat at full speed to the
camp. If we were discovered, we were to fire off our rifles as a
warning to our friends, but if not, we were to reserve our bullets for
the bodies of our foes. We each had on tight snow-shoes, with which we
could walk well enough, but running with such machines is altogether a
very different affair to running in a thin pair of pumps. Having
proceeded about, as we judged, three miles from the camp, we began to
circle round it, for it was just as likely that the cunning redskins
would approach from the east or south, as from the north. They, wiser
than white men, never commit the fault of despising their enemies, but
take every advantage which stratagem or treachery can afford them to
gain their ends.

Obed and I began to think at last that it must be near dawn, and turned
our eyes eastward, in the expectation of seeing the pale red and yellow
streaks which usher in the rich glow, the harbinger of the rising sun.
That was my idea, not friend Obed's. He remarked, "Daylight will soon
be on, I guess, and it is time we were back at camp to get some
breakfast, before we begin our trudge over the mountains, for I'm mighty
hungry, I calkilate; ain't you, Dick?"

I agreed with him; but just before we turned our faces campward, I
climbed up the south side of a rocky mound, above which I allowed only
my head