Sam narrated the adventures, already recorded, and after some discussion, to Ike's great delight, it was decided to remain here for at least another day, and to lay in a supply of rabbits before they faced the unknown and dreaded cañon again.
After Ulna had appeased his hunger, Sam made him lie down before the fire and take a sleep, while he and Ike went off on another hunting expedition.
They brought home several loads of rabbits during the day, and Wah Shin, who believed the game would keep better if it were cooked, busied himself broiling rabbits till the last one was in an edible condition.
Toward evening Ulna got up from the blanket, in which he had been wrapped, and when he put on his clothes he looked like an entirely different being from the spectre that appeared at the river side some hours before.
Now that the immediate danger from hunger was over, Sam would have been comparatively happy had it not been for thoughts of his father.
It is well that it is not given to us to lift the veil of the future, or to tell what is happening beyond the range of our own vision. Yet, it must be confessed, that it would have eased the minds of the loving father and the devoted son, if each could have known of the situation of the other at this time.
It was not in Ike's nature to feel trouble for any length of time. He had all the light-heartedness of his race, and an enviable capacity for enjoying the present.
He played with the dog; he laughed and sang, till at length, overcome with the excess of enjoyment—and it may be the great quantities of broiled rabbit he had eaten, he threw himself on the ground before the fire and was asleep in no time.
Again Sam detailed the guards, taking the first watch himself, and when another morning dawned they found themselves more rested and refreshed than they had been at any time since leaving Gold Cave Camp.
The night before Ulna busied himself cutting the jack-rabbits' skins into strips, which he knotted and twisted into ropes, and these ropes were found of the greatest use in binding the pieces of the raft together before they resumed their journey down the long, dark, watery arcade.