lay at its usual
depth, and where it was beaten down by the passage of men, and wagons,
and horses. This gave me renewed spirits, though, on examining the
traces, I discovered that they were at least a day old, perhaps older.
My chief immediate wish was to have something to stop the cravings of
hunger. I felt in my pockets. I had not a particle of food; nor had I
a scrap of tobacco, which might have answered the purpose for a short
time. I tried chewing a lump of snow--that was cold comfort; so all I
could do was to put my best foot forward, and to try and overtake my
friends as soon as possible. I might have walked on for three or four
hours engaged in the somewhat difficult endeavour to forget how hungry I
was, and to occupy my mind with pleasing fancies, (I suspect few people
would have succeeded under the circumstances better than I did), when I
heard a loud growl, and on looking round to my right, I saw, sitting at
the mouth of a cavern formed in a rock in a side valley of the main pass
along which I was travelling, a huge grizzly bear. There he sat,
rubbing his nose with his paws, putting me very much in mind of pictures
I have seen of hermits of old counting their beads; nor was he, I
suspect, much less profitably employed.

I stopped the moment I heard him growl, and looked firmly at the
grizzly. I knew that it would not do to turn and run. Had I done so,
he would have been after me in a moment, and made mincemeat of my
carcass. I do not know what he thought of me: I do know that I thought
him a very ugly customer. I bethought me of my rifle. The last shot I
had fired had been at the Indians; I had not since loaded it. I dreaded
lest, before I could do so, he might commence his attack, which I
guessed he was meditating. He had probably only just roused up from his
winter nap, and was rubbing his eyes and snout as a person does, on
waking out of sleep, to recover his senses, and consider what he should
do. To this circumstance I owed, I suspected, my present freedom from
attack. I, meantime, loaded my rifle as fast as I could, and felt much
lighter of heart when I once more lifted it ready for use to my
shoulder, with a good ounce of lead in the barrel.

"Now, master Grizzly," said I to myself, "come on, I am ready for you."

Bruin, however, was either not quite awake, or wished to consider the
best means of making a prize of me. The truth was that both of us were
hungry. He wanted to eat me, a