His heart began to sink lower and lower every day, and the utter impossibility of making up his mind what to do became at length agonizing.

To have turned and gone back the hundreds of miles over which he had travelled would have caused him some anxiety under any circumstances, but to do so while Joe and Henri were either wandering about there or in the power of the savages was, he felt, out of the question.

Yet in which way should he go?
Whatever course he took might lead him farther and farther away from them.
In this dilemma he came to the determination of remaining where he was, at least until the snow should leave the ground.
He felt great relief even when this hopeless course was decided upon, and set about making himself an encampment with some degree of cheerfulness.

When he had completed this task, he took his rifle, and leaving Charlie picketed in the centre of a dell, where the long, rich grass rose high above the snow, went off to hunt.
On turning a rocky point his heart suddenly bounded into his throat, for there, not thirty yards distant, stood a huge grizzly bear! Yes, there he was at last, the monster to meet which the young hunter had so often longed--the terrible size and fierceness of which he had heard so often spoken about by the old hunters.

There it stood at last; but little did Dick Varley think that the first time he should meet with his foe should be when alone in the dark recesses of the Rocky Mountains, and with none to succour him in the event of the battle going against him.