A FOREBODING OF MISFORTUNE. 149 



whatever side I reclined, sleep obstinately refused to come 

 to my eyelids. True, twice I had to turn out of my warm 

 and snug blankets to see what disturbed my mare and 

 mule, but this was a nightly occurrence ; nevertheless, a 

 load seemed settled upon my spirits in fact, I had a fore- 

 boding of misfortune. But daylight at length came. How 

 blessed is its appearance to the storm-tossed mariner, the 

 invalid on a sick-couch, ay, and to the wanderer who is far 

 beyond civilization a sojourner in a land where savage 

 brutes and doubly savage man surround him, craving for 

 the darkness of night to accomplish his destruction ! At 

 the period I speak of, I was among the Black Hills, at that 

 time, although not many years since, the favorite retreat 

 of the grizzly bear, and the frequent lurking-place of the 

 young brave, or war party of Indians, craving for an op- 

 portunity to shed an enemy's blood. To. win honor they 

 had left their tribe, and to return with a scalp was to reap 

 the reward. 



When day became sufficiently advanced, and the mists 

 that wrapped the valley in their impenetrable shroud had 

 rolled up the hill-sides, I sedulously searched around my 

 solitary bivouac to find if there were grounds for my un- 

 easiness. In gradually increasing circles I walked around 

 the camp, and until I had gained the distance of a hundred 

 yards from it, no impression on the fast-disappearing snow, 

 no broken twig, nor disturbed rotten limb, indicated that I 

 was not far from animal life. By degrees I increased the 

 diameter of my circling search, and was all but returning, 

 satisfied that my own excited imagination had been playing 

 me tricks, when I came across the wide-spread, deep im- 

 pressions of an immense bear. "Whatever others might 

 think, in such utter desolation and loneliness, it was pleas- 

 ing to learn that Bruin was my foe instead of a stealthy 

 redskin. 



