erings. To
collect sticks, light a fire, pluck, and clean out my bird, was the work
of a few minutes. I cannot say that the first part I ate of him was
very much done, for I tore off a wing and then put the body back to get
more roasted while I satisfied the more violent cravings of hunger. I
washed down my breakfast with a draught of water from the lake, and then
hurried on again towards the west.

Before, when I had lost my friends, I dreaded suffering from cold, now I
had to fear the heat. The sun came down with terrific force on my head,
and seemed, at times, as if it would scorch my brain to a cinder. At
last I felt that if I went on longer I might be struck down by it, so I
threw myself on the ground under the shade of a wide-spreading cedar, in
a little wood, which contained besides cedars, pine trees, birch, wild
cherries, hawthorn, sweet willow, with honeysuckle and sumach. I slept
an hour or more, and, having eaten some more goose, continued my
journey. Though I kept my eyes actively engaged on every side I could
discover no trace of my friends.

It was evening, when, as I was travelling along the banks of a river
towards the west, I saw on the opposite side, and on the summit of a
rocky ridge, which extended at a distance for some miles parallel with
it, two horsemen. From the way they rode along I had no doubt that they
were my friends the Raggets in search of me. Had they been going east I
might have had hopes of cutting them off on their return; but they were
moving west, and going from me. I shouted at the top of my voice,
though at that distance they could not possibly hear me. I took off my
jacket; I waved it frantically. I was about to plunge into the river to
swim across, but the current was very strong and rapid, swelled by the
melting snows of the mountains. I had good reason to dread being
carried away should I make the attempt. I ran on, hoping to find a ford
or some high spot whence my signals might be more easily seen. No
elevated ground appeared, but the banks were very uneven, sometimes
rocky, in some places overgrown with brushwood, so that my progress was
very slow, and the horsemen disappeared in the distance.

It soon after this grew dark, and this circumstance made me hope that
should the horsemen I had seen have been the Raggets, the camp could not
be very far-off; but then again I had sufficient experience to teach me
that it would be vain to attempt reaching it in the