party had just arrived. The men sent out in search of them had scarcely advanced a mile when they found them trudging back to the camp in a very disconsolate manner. But their sorrows were put to flight on hearing the way in which the horses had been returned to them with interest.
Scarcely had Dick Varley, however, congratulated himself on the recovery of his gallant steed, when he was thrown into despair by the sudden arrival of Joe with the tidings of the catastrophe we have just related.
Of course there was a general rush to the rescue. Only a few men were ordered to remain to guard the camp, while the remainder mounted their horses and galloped towards the gorge where Charlie had been entombed. On arriving, they found that Bruin had worked with such laudable zeal that nothing but the tip of his tail was seen sticking out of the hole which he had dug. The hunters could not refrain from laughing as they sprang to the ground, and standing in a semicircle in front of the hole, prepared to fire. But Crusoe resolved to have the honour of leading the assault. He seized fast hold of Bruin’s flank, and caused his teeth to meet therein. Caleb backed out, but before he could recover from his surprise a dozen bullets pierced his heart and brain.
“Now, lads,” cried Cameron, setting to work with a large wooden shovel, “work, like niggers If there’s any life left in the horse, it’ll soon be smothered out unless we set him free.”
The men needed no urging, however. They worked as if their lives depended on their exertions. Dick Varley in particular, laboured like a young Hercules, and Henri hurled masses of snow about in a most surprising manner. Crusoe, too, entered heartily into the spirit of the work, and, scraping with his forepaws, sent such a continuous shower of snow behind him that he was speedily lost to view in a hole of his own excavating. In the course of half an hour a cavern was dug in the mound almost close up to the cliff, and the men were beginning to look about for the crushed body of Dick’s steed, when an exclamation from Henri attracted their attention.
“Ha! mes ami, here am be one hole.”
The truth of this could not be doubted, for the eccentric trapper had thrust his shovel through the wall of snow into what appeared to be a cavern beyond, and immediately followed up his remark by thrusting in his head
