368 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
revisit the glimpses of the moon, “making night hideous,” 
I am sorry to say I shan’t be here! “Such sweet com- 
pulsion doth in music lie,” I shall be compelled to travel 
away from yours! Well, as the coast is clear, I'll go down! 
A pretty muss they’ve made of it down here. Fur, and 
blood, and bones! That salient thief did get my tit-bits, 
aure enough. Well, it is said there is such a thing as 
starving possible! I suppose I am beginning to feel some- 
thing like the premonitories. I have tasted nothing since 
daylight yesterday morning; but they say an empty stomach 
for long wind, and I am likely to need all the wind I can 
raise before I get across this prairie. Some of the boys 
will be in sight though, by the time I reach the mouth of 
the gorge. It can’t be that they are all scalped, and they 
must know that I am here. Oh, yes, I shall see them, and 
what a laugh we'll have comparing roosts. 
I set off down the valley, reached the prairie, strained my 
eye over the desolate expanse, and not a living thing was to 
be seen. I went to the tree where I left the Doctor dangling; 
the wolves had stripped the bones of the bear, and were still 
lingering around them. That immortal spear was sticking 
between the ribs, where he had driven it, no doubt, with 
splenetic vigor. I looked around for some trace of his 
bones, but none were to be seen. 
Great God, it can’t be they are not coming! Foolish 
expletive! when one neither believes in the greatness or 
the Godship. Instinct of education! Bah! one needs 
something more get-at-able and substantial than instincts 
and old wives’ tales at such times as this! 
I climbed the tree to the top-most bough, and strained 
my eyes till they ached again. Wide and terrible solitude; 
not an insect chirped, not a leaf stirred. The pulses of my 
heart sounded like the throes of a mountain; I began to 
imagine it the centre of all vitality—the only thing that 
