A Narrow Escape.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 888, 8 March 1889, Page 11

A Narrow Escape.

From Theodore Roosevelt’s illustrated paper on * Frontier Types,’ in the Century Magazine, we quote the following description of one of his trappers, a French Canadian : * Once or twice he showed a curious reluctance about allowing a man to approach him suddenly from behind. Altogether his actions were so odd that I felt some curiosity to learn his history. It turned out that he had been through a rather uncanny experience the winter before. He and another man had gone into a remote basin, or enclosed valley, into the heart of the mountains, where game was very plentiful; indeed, it \ was so abundant that they decided to pass the winter there. Accordingly they put up a log-cabin, working hard, and merely killing enough meat for their immediate use. Just as it was finished winter set in with tremendous snow-storms. Going out to hunt in the tirßt lull, they found, to their consternation, that every head of game bad left the valley. Not an animal was to be found therein ; they had abandoned it for their winter haunts. The outlook for the two adventurers was appaling. They were afraidjof trying to breakout through the deep snow-drifts, and starvation stared them in the face if they stayed. The man that I met had his dog with him. They put themselves on very short commons, so as to use up their flour as slowly as possible, and hunted un* wearledly, but saw nothing. Soon a violent quarrel broke out between them. The other man, a fierce, sullen fellow, insisted that the dog should be killed, but the owner was exceedingly attached to it, and refused. For a oouple of weeks they spoke no words to each other, though cooped in the narrow pen of logs. Then one night the owner of the dog was wakened by the animal crying out; the other man had tried to kill it with his knife, but failed. The provisions were now almost exhausted, and the two men were glaring at each other with the rage of maddened, ravening hunger. Neither dared to sleep for fear that the other would kill him. Then the one who owned the dog at last spoke, and proposed that, to give each a chance for his life, they should separate. He would take half of the handful of flour that was left and start off to try to get home ; the other should stay where he was ; and if he tried to follow the first he was warned that he would be shot without mercy. A like fate was to be the portion of the wanderer if driven to return to the hut. The arrangement was agreed to, and the two men separated, neither darffig to turn his back while they were within rifle-shot of each other. For two days the one who went off toiled on with weary weakness through the snowdrifts. Late on the second afternoon, &3 he looked back from a high ridge, he saw in the far distance a black speck against the snow, coming along on his trail. His oompanion was dogging his footsteps. Immediately he followed his own trail back.a little and lay jn ambush j At dusk his companion came

stealthily.up, rifle in hand, peering cautiously ahead, his drawn face showing the starved, eager ferocity of a wild beast, and the man he was hunting shot him down exactly as if he had been one. Leaving the body where it fell, the wanderer continued his journey, the dog staggering painfully behind him. The next evening he baked his last cake and divided it with the dog. In the morning, with his belt drawn still tighter round his skeleton body, he once more set out, with apparent only a few hours of dull misery between him 'and death. At noon he crossed the track of a huge timber-wolf ; mstrntly the dog gave tongue, and, rallying its strength, ran along the trail. The man struggled after. At last his strength gave out, and ho sat down to die; but while sitting still, slowly stiffening with the cold, ho heard the dog baying in the woods. Shaking off his mortal numbness he crawled towards the sound, and found the wolf over the body of a doer that be had just lulled, and keeping the do • from it. At the approach of the new assailant the wolf sullenly drew off, and the man and dog toro the raw doerflesh with hideous eagerness. It made them very sick for the next twenty-four hours ; but, lying by the carcase for two or three days, they recovered strength.’