338 WILD srORTs in the far west. 



bones, which rats or snakes might have carried off. The 

 Indian pointed in silence to the upper bone of the 

 right arm, which was broken, and the knife was lying 

 on the left side. 



The sight of these remains of a human being, which 

 may have lain there for j^ears, Avhile his footsteps were 

 still so fresh in the moist earth, was deeply affecting. 

 As I was about to pass on, the Indian laid his hand 

 on my arm, and shook his head, saying, in broken 

 English, " The sj^irit of the red man is in the cave, 

 and Wachiga goes no further." Nothing could induce 

 him to go on — all my persuasions were fruitless ; point- 

 ing to the bones, he said, " The bones of the red man 

 belonged to a gi-eat chief; the bear seeks no bed where 

 the hunter sleeps.'* As this last remark seemed well 

 founded, and as the sight had shaken me too much 

 for me to go alone, we turned back without touching 

 the remains. 



We found Erskine alone, and told him what we had 

 seen, but he did not seem at all inclined to visit the 

 remains. We found three other caves, but no bear: 

 Erskine and the Indians tried the two first, Erskine 

 and I the last. The cave separated into two passages ; 

 Erskine took the right, I the left, and as I proceeded I 

 found plenty of marks. The cave was so small that I 

 was obliged to leave eveiy thing but a torch and my 

 knife ; I could not even turn myself from one side to 

 the other to change my attitude. I had taken off my 

 hunting shirt, and had on nothing but a cotton shirt 

 and leggings, and was working on, inch by inch, with 

 tolerable certainty of finding a bear. The passage was 

 quite round, and in many places as smooth as glass 



