After a long search they discovered the sledge, with only one rail broken and its load intact.
"Now for a fire and breakfast!" cried Phil, heading towards the timber, as soon as the original order of things was restored. "After that we will make one more effort to find some trace of poor Jalap, though I don't believe there is the slightest chance of success."
They entered the forest of wide-spreading but stunted evergreens, and Phil, axe in hand, was vigorously attacking a dead spruce, when an exclamation from his companion caused him to pause in his labor and look around. "What can that be?" asked Serge, pointing to a thick hemlock that stood but a few yards from them. The lower end of its drooping branches were deep buried in snow, but such part as was still visible was in a strange state of agitation.
"It must be a bear," replied Phil, dropping his axe and springing to the sledge for his rifle. "His winter den is there, and we have disturbed him. Get out your gun—quick! We can't afford to lose him. Meat's too scarce in camp just now." Even as he spoke, and before the guns could be taken from their moose-skin cases, the motion of the branches increased, then came a violent upheaval of the snow that weighted them down, and the boys caught a glimpse of some huge shaggy animal issuing from the powdered whiteness.
"Hurry!" cried Phil. "No, look out! We're too late! What? Great Scott! It can't be. Yes, it is! Hurrah! Glory, hallelujah! I knew he'd pull through all right, and I believe I'm the very happiest fellow in all the world at this minute."
"Mebbe you be, son," remarked Jalap Coombs, "and then again mebbe there's others as is equally joyful. As my old friend Kite Roberson useter say, 'A receiver's as good as a thief,' and I sartainly received a heap of pleasure through hearing you holler jest now."