METAPHYSICS OF BEAR HUNTING. 871 
the torpid echoes from a sleep of ages. “He that feedeth 
the young ravens!” I felt now the striking sublimity of 
that figure. 
Dark-plumed spirit of the. desolation, in what grim wild 
hast thou thy home? Thou hast snuffed the slaughter from 
afar, and been coursing with death around the world. Yet 
there are wide throats gaping with ravin in that foul nest 
of thine. How dost thou live, and how art they fed, while 
thou art crossing continents, the mate of famine? Waugh! 
waugh! woo-a-ugh! he “tolled” again, and spread his black 
wings and flapped indignantly away! The omen of his coming 
is not ill to me; where he goes there must be something to 
live upon. 
It is no miracle that gives refreshing to these tireless 
wings. Ha! I have it. . The snails! Hays said the bears 
came down to feed upon them. I rose, with new hope, 
examined the ground about me, and, to my great joy found, 
scattered here and there over the surface, quite a number 
of snails, some of them as large as my thumb. Ah! ha! I 
said, I should not starve! and a gleam of exultant triumph 
shot through my inmost soul. 
Defeated! defeated! I shouted, as I impiously shook my 
clenched, paltry hand toward the fathomless wide heavens; 
I shall neither die of starvation, nor, unless I will it, at the 
hands of the Indians. There is game in the hills to be had 
for the shooting, but I do not choose to turn “ root-digger,”’ 
as I should have to do when my ammunition gives out. 1 
burrow with my claws for the gratification of no one. The 
first shot would bring the Comanches upon me, and I am 
not ready for them yet! I shall go back among men, and show 
the cowards how much a haughty purpose can aceompiish. 
With nothing to creep behind, deer could not be approached 
on the dead level of the plain before me. 
These snails, that ghostly-eyed, jolly old croaker has 
helped me to, will last so long as the sterility and the sand 
