“Now,” continued the latter, as he resumed the search for the stock of his rifle, “thar’s nigh on to a thousand pound of bone an’ muscle into that thar feller, an’ it would take us a week to drag him to the shanty; so I say let’s camp here till ye fix him up for stuffin’. We aint got no blankets, but we’ve both got hatchets, an’ firewood is plenty.”
Oscar was only too glad to give his consent to this arrangement. He was so weak from fright that the bare thought of walking to the cabin made him feel as though he wanted to sit down and take a long rest.
Big Thompson evidently understood just how he felt, for he straightway proceeded to strip the boughs from some of the evergreens that stood close by, and when he had piled these boughs under the overhanging rock he seated Oscar upon them.
After that he rolled the bear upon a drag, drew it up under the rock, and having started a roaring fire, picked up his employer’s breech loader and went out to shoot something for supper.
“Ye needn’t be oneasy, kase I shan’t go fur away,” said he as he was about to set off. “I don’t reckon ye feel so pert as usual arter seein’ Ole Eph with his dander riz, so I’ll kinder keep within shootin’ distance of ye.”
Big Thompson disappeared in the grove, and Oscar, with that delicious feeling of relief and contentment which a weary traveller experiences when he reaches his comfortable home and sinks into his easy-chair after a long, tiresome, and dangerous journey, settled back on his fragrant couch and feasted his eyes on the grizzly. He was like a boy with his first pair of skates—he could look at nothing else.
CHAPTER XXX.
OSCAR HAS A VISITOR.
When Big Thompson returned from his hunt, half an hour later, carrying over his shoulder a haunch of venison wrapped in the skin of a red deer, he was astonished to find his employer hard at work gathering a supply of fuel. His bed of boughs had been removed, and its place was occupied by a roaring fire, which had been kindled close against the base of the rock.
“I did that because we haven’t any blankets, and the night promises to be a cold one,” said Oscar, who was himself again. “As soon as the ground and the rock are sufficiently warmed we’ll take the fire away, put our beds there, and sleep as comfortably as we could in the cabin.”
“Sho!” exclaimed the guide. “I have warmed my bed that way lots of times. But who larnt ye so much?”