“After having got thus far without broken limbs, it won’t do to have the breath squeezed out of my body for want of exertion,” said I to myself, working away with arms and shoulders, till, as a chicken cracks the shell of its egg, I broke through the covering of snow which was above me, and once more I popped my head into daylight. I was in the midst of a sea of snow, the hind paw of the big bear was close to me, so I hoped that friend Short was not far-off, while I could make out several of my other companions struggling up through the snow around us. High above us towered the cliffs, and it seemed indeed wonderful that any of us could come down such a height alive.
There is a Greek fable I remember reading as a boy at school, of the ground being sown with teeth, and out of it coming armed men. I cannot help thinking that we must have looked very much like those ready-made heroes, as I and my companions struggled up out of the snow. Elihu Ragget was the first who joined me. Sam Short did not appear; I told Elihu that I thought he must be near—probably under the bear, and that if not released, he would certainly be smothered. So, without a word we set to work with our hands, shovelling out the snow as well as we could. We thought, as we worked away, that we heard a groan. This made us redouble our exertions to release our friend. We had not been a minute at work, when a shout reached our ears, and on our looking up, there appeared the very man we were in search of, standing on a ledge of rocks, high above our heads. He seemed unhurt, and he was shouting to us to ask how we were. We thought, therefore, that we must have been mistaken as to the groan, when some one asked, “Where is Obed Ragget?”
“Oh, lads, help me!” cried Elihu; the thought that his young brother lay buried beneath our feet, and that he had not missed him, striking him with shame.
“Ay, ay,” was the answer, as we all set to with even more energy than before. We dug and dug away round the bear, till at length a man’s leg appeared, and then his body, and in a few seconds the snow was cleared away, and my friend Obed Ragget was drawn up out of the snow. But we gazed at him with sorrow, for not a spark of life appeared in him. The rest were going to give him up as dead, but I entreated them not to despair. I examined him, and found that, as far as I could judge, there was not a bone broken, and when I put my mouth down to his, I felt sure that he still breathed.
“What he wants is warmth,” said I, just then recollecting that the body of the bear would still afford it. No sooner thought of than done. It was a desperate, and not altogether a pleasant remedy. We cut a huge slit in the body of the bear, and stripping off Obed’s outer garments, we clapped him in, keeping only his head outside, while all of us stood round to assist in giving him warmth. We watched anxiously for the result. First one eye opened, then another; then he sighed heavily; and at last he sang out, and asked where he was. In a little time he laughed quietly.
“Don’t call me a cub,” said he, “that’s all; I think that I am wonderfully better. I am much obliged to you and the bear, but now I would just as soon come out into the world again.”
After this we had no longer any anxiety about him, and certainly our remedy had a very wonderful effect in restoring him to animation. Now came our difficulty as to how to get out of the gully into which we had fallen. There was an outlet, but the way to it was evidently almost impracticable, and where it might lead we could not tell. Besides this, there was Sam Short, perched like an eagle above our heads; only Sam, not having wings like an eagle, could not get down to us, nor, as far as we could see, could we get up to the top of the cliff above him. We shouted, but we could not make each other hear.
“If the big bear was up at the top, we should not be long before we would be up to him,” observed Obed; “Sam would soon cut her hide up into strips and haul us up.”
We looked about; as to climbing up, that was out of the question. For fifty feet above our heads there was a perpendicular wall of rock. Above that there were numerous ledges or platforms, and the cliff seemed comparatively easy to climb. While we were looking about and discussing the matter, we saw Sam attempting to climb up the cliff. After many attempts he succeeded in reaching the top, and disappeared from our sight. He was absent for some time, and when he was again seen, he had a coil of something or other, we could not exactly make out what, round his neck. We now saw him, after carefully examining the cliff below him, begin to descend. We watched him anxiously, for our very existence depended on his success. He reached at last the place where he had before stood, then he cautiously commenced descending still lower.
“What donkeys we have been!” suddenly exclaimed Elihu; “the coil of stuff he has got won’t drag any of us up, we must make a rope for ourselves.”