THE GKIZZLY BEAR. 59 



remaining food, or on man and beast, they concluded to 

 pitch the camp in a deep chasm a short distance away. 

 Into this we marched, accordingly, after dinner; but we 

 experienced much difficulty in getting the horses to the 

 bottom, owing to the steepness of the walls and the diffi- 

 culty of getting a foothold. On reaching the base, the te- 

 pees were soon erected, and, when this was done, the horses 

 were let loose to pick up such herbage as they could find 

 during the night. 



The inmates of the encampment then retired to rest, and 

 I should judge that they were soon asleep, as I saw no one 

 stirring about; but I found it impossible to woo gentle 

 slumber, owing to the strangeness of my surroundings. 

 The chasm was, in the first place, so deep and gloomy that 

 the darkness was fairly inky in hue, and so dense that all 

 that could be seen were the shadowy walls and the twin- 

 kling stars, which seemed to be unusually far away. A 

 turbulent river roared past the camp with such power and 

 velocity that the air appeared to vibrate ; and, to increase 

 the din, several ospreys, which occupied islets in the stream, 

 screamed in the loudest manner at intervals, as if they ob- 

 jected to the intrusion on their domain. The whole scene, 

 which was weird in the extreme, and seemed to belong to 

 another planet, or to the land of the ogres rather than to 

 this earth, impressed me so much that I could not sleep, 

 so I laid and tossed on my hard couch on the ground all 

 night. I often sighed for the morning, and was delighted 

 on seeing the first gray glimmering of the dawn in the sky 

 above. On noticing this, I seized my rifle, and started out 

 to find my mustang, for I was rather afraid that he might 

 have tumbled into the river during the night, as it hugged 

 the banks so closely in some places that there was no shore- 

 line, and not even a talus, owing to the strength of the 

 current. Groping my way to the right of the camp, I fol- 

 lowed the courses of crags or the few open spots where a 

 long, dank grass grew in profusion, and in half an hour 

 reached a rock which gave me a good view some distance 

 up the river. I waited there until the light was strong 



