The snow that had fallen was not deep enough to offer the slightest obstruction to their advance. It was, indeed, only one of those occasional showers common to that part of the country in the late autumn, which season had now crept upon Dick almost before he was aware of it, and he fully expected that it would melt away in a few days. In this hope he kept steadily advancing, until he found himself in the midst of those rocky fastnesses which divide the waters that flow into the Atlantic from those that flow into the Pacific Ocean. Still the slight crust of snow lay on the ground, and he had no means of knowing whether he was going in the right direction.
Game was abundant, and there was no lack of wood, so that his bivouac was not so cold as might have been expected.
Travelling, however, had become difficult, and even dangerous, owing to the rugged nature of the ground over which he proceeded. The scenery had completely changed in its character. Dick no longer coursed over the free open plains, but he passed through valleys filled with luxuriant trees, and hemmed in by mountains, whose sides rose upward until the snow-clad peaks pierced the clouds.
There was something awful in these dark solitudes, quite overwhelming to a youth of Dick’s temperament. His heart began to sink lower and lower every day, and the utter impossibility of making up his mind what to do became at length agonizing. To have turned and gone back the hundreds of miles over which he had travelled would have caused him some anxiety under any circumstances, but to do so while Joe and Henri were wandering about there or in the power of the savages was out of the question. Yet which way should he go? Whatever course he took might lead him farther from them.
In this dilemma he came to the determination of remaining there until the snow should leave the ground.
He felt great relief even when this hopeless course was decided upon, and set about making himself an encampment with some degree of cheerfulness. When he had completed this task, he took his rifle, and leaving Charlie picketed in the centre of a dell, where the long, rich grass rose high above the snow, went off to hunt.
On turning a rocky point his heart bounded into his throat, for not thirty yards distant, stood a huge grizzly bear!
Yes, there he was at last, the monster to meet which the young hunter had so often longed, the terrible size and
