e the sauce of a hunger
closely allied to starvation; but that supplied everything. It rendered
that feast of half-cooked brook-trout the most satisfactory meal he had
ever eaten.

When, at last, his hunger was entirely appeased, the sun had set, and
another night without shelter or human companionship was before him; but
what did he care? As he lay in front of his fire, on an elastic,
sweet-scented bed of small spruce boughs, with a semicircle of larger
ones planted in the ground behind him, and their feathery tips drooping
gracefully above his head, he was as happy and well-content as ever in
his life. He had conquered the wilderness, escaped from one of its most
cunningly contrived prison-houses, and won from it the means of
satisfying his immediate wants. He enjoyed a glorious feeling of triumph
and independence. To be sure, he had no idea of where he was, nor where
the stream would lead him; but he had no intention of deserting it. He
realized that his safest plan was to follow it. Eventually it must lead
him to the Rio Grande, and there he would surely be able to rejoin his
party, if he did not find them sooner.

He was in no hurry to leave the pleasant strip of flower-strewn meadow
the next morning, nor did he, until he had caught and eaten a hearty
breakfast, and laid in a supply of trout for at least one more meal.

The third night found him still on the bank of his stream, which was
flowing happily, with many a laugh and gurgle, through a narrow but
wonderfully beautiful valley, carpeted with a luxuriant growth of grass
and dotted with clumps of cedars. For this night's camp he constructed a
rude hut of slender poles and branches, similar to the Indian wick-i-ups
he had seen on the Plains. In it he slept on a bed high heaped with soft
grasses and cedar twigs that was a perfect cradle of luxury.

As Glen emerged from his hut at sunrise he was almost as startled at
seeing a herd of several black-tailed (mule) deer, feeding within a
hundred feet of him, as they were to see him. Pausing for a good stare
at him, for the black-tailed deer is among the most inquisitive animals
in the world, they bounded away with tremendous leaps, and disappeared
behind a cedar thicket. A minute later Glen was again startled; this
time by the report of a rifle from some distance down the valley. He had
just been wishing for his own rifle, the sight of deer having suggested
that venison would be a very pleasant change from a steady