“There were trees all round our humble abode, and wearisome enough it was sometimes to awake on stormy nights and listen to the wild wind roaring through their branches, mingling with the awesome cry of the forest wolves. On just such a night Jack and I once started from our beds, and sat up and listened. There was the dread of some impending danger lying like a lump of lead at my heart, and Jack afterwards confessed that he too was awakened by the same kind of feeling. Almost in the same breath we called aloud to our guide. There was no answer, but a rush of cold wind that swept through the cabin told us that the door was open. We sprang at once from our couches and hurried on some clothing, then seizing our pistols we sallied out; just as a cry for help fell upon our ear, a cry that was drowned the next moment in the horrid ‘hubbering’ sound that wolves make while worrying a victim. ‘Come on, Jack,’ I cried; ‘they are killing poor Walter.’
“Jack and I were both in the melée next moment. The merciful moon shone out, and we could see our guide on his feet covered with blood, but defending himself bravely with a brawny fist and a broken lantern. Not far off was our burly camp-dog engaged with three of the hungry-eyed monsters. Jack and I soon turned the odds to deadly game, but Walter was badly wounded, and it took weeks to get him well. It seems he had taken his lantern and gone out to see if the horses were secure, when he was at once attacked by the wolves. Winter brought us visitors from the far north, the grizzly bear and his cousin the cinnamon bear. They used to hide in the darkest and deepest nooks of the forest by day, or in rocky dens by the mountain sides, and come prowling out by night, oftentimes making the woods shake with their terrible roaring.
“A better guide or trapper than Walter couldn’t have been; he was good for forest, hill, or plain, and yet he lost himself one day not half-a-mile from our hut-door. He had gone for a short walk in the forest; and, according to his own account, his head all of a sudden got turned round, as it were. This is a kind of madness not at all uncommon in the prairie or wilderness. And now to honest Walter west seemed east, and south seemed north. He had no compass with him; and it is questionable whether he would have believed it if he had had one. It is a good thing in cases of this kind, that a man usually marches round and round in a circle. We found our guide next day lying exhausted at the foot of a pine tree, not five miles from our wigwam; or, rather, his good and trusty Newfoundland dog found him; but how the wolves had spared him was to us a mystery. He had never once stopped walking till he fell where we found him.
“The time flew by, gentlemen; winter had almost passed, although snow still lay deep in woodland and glade, and we were fain to wear our snow-shoes when going abroad; still the winds blew more softly, and budlets began to peep out on the larch trees, which are ever the first to welcome the balmy breath of returning spring.
“One morning, greatly to our annoyance, we found the rude stable-door open, and our horses gone. But their tracks were fresh on the snow, and so we felt sure we soon should find them.
“The trail led us to the uplands, and we were not sorry for this, as by mounting an eminence or hill we would be enabled to see the country for miles on miles around us. When we did at long last reach a hill-top, a sight we saw not two miles off was quite enough to curdle the blood of such inexperienced woodsmen as we were then.
“Indians! a score and more of them, with their horses picketed, and ours among the rest. It was evident from their armour, their rifles and spears, and their dress, that they were on the war-path.
“Gentlemen, I have but little heart to look back upon what immediately followed our discovery. Some day I may tell you all our wild adventures among the backwoods savages. Suffice it for me here to say, that after days and nights of fierce fighting, our foes were driven off by fresh bands of Indians. This was a tribe our guide Walter well knew; and, on his advice, we surrendered to them. They spared our lives; but they made us prisoners, because they found us of use to them. For five long years we remained the slaves of this warlike tribe; but the dawn came after the long darkness. We escaped on three of their horses—we chose the best, you may be sure. It was on the evening of a great feast, in commemoration of a successful raid they had made into the white man’s territory, returning with cattle, and, sad to say, with scalps.