AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 115 



she reach home in safety ? God grant it and that 

 in due time I may be permitted to join her there. 

 Then other familiar images passed and repassed my 

 mental ken. The kind acts of dear friends, the 

 hospitalities shown me by strangers and passing 

 acquaintances in distant lands and in years long 

 agone came trooping through my memory, and a feel- 

 ing of gratitude for those kindnesses supplanted for 

 the time that of solitude. Gradually and sweetly I 

 sank into a profound slumber and all was stillness 

 and oblivion. 



Several hours, perhaps, have passed, and I am 

 thirsty. I get up and start to the little brook for 

 water ; to reach it a log, lying across a deep fissure 

 in the rocks, must be scaled. With no thought of 

 danger I essay the task by the dying fire's uncer- 

 tain light and that of the twinkling stars. I have 

 not counted on the heavy covering of frost that has 

 been deposited on the log since dark, and stepping 

 out upon the barkless part of the trunk, my mocca- 

 sins slip, and with a shriek and a wild but unsuccess- 

 ful grasp at an overhanging limb I fall twenty feet 

 and land on the mass of broken and jagged granite 

 beneath ! The Indians, alarmed by my cries, spring 

 to my relief, carry me to the fire, give me stimulants, 

 bind up my broken arm, and do all in their power 

 to alleviate my sufferings. 



They are not the crafty villains and assassins that 

 my fancy had painted. They are kind, sympathetic 

 friends. I Realize that my right collar-bone and three 

 ribs on the same side are broken, and when I remem- 

 ber where I am, the deplorableness and utter help- 

 lessness of my condition appal me. 



