AN EMPTY LAEDEE. 135 



gone off temporarily to sheltered places, as our mules had 

 done, we felt confident ; but we feared disappointment in 

 the Christmas dinner, which had been long looked forward 

 to, talked about, and provided for, excepting the fresh 

 meat ; and the storm had caught our larder in a most un- 

 prepared state, and just ere the arrival of the time when we 

 had calculated to lay in our stock of game for the Christmas 

 feast. The remains of a fore-quarter of venison was all 

 the fresh meat on hand. We had a first-class prospect of 

 keeping high festival on fat bacon and plum-pudding, which 

 as a Christmas dinner would not only be a great disappoint- 

 ment to our expectations, but an outrage on our sense of 

 the fitness of things. But, mountaineer-like, we hoped for 

 the best. 



