Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

Tin: DESTKOYING ANGEL. 19
from time to time, above the washing of the stream, a
faint sound of moaning mounted to my father's ears.
While he thus looked, an old man got staggering to
his feet, unwound his blanket, and laid it, with great
gentleness, on a young girl who sat hard by propped
against a rock. The girl did not seem to be conscious
of the act ; and the old man, after having looked upon
her with the most engaging pity, returned to his former
bed and lay down again uncovered on the turf. But the
scene had not passed without observation even in that
starving camp. From the very outskirts of the party,
a man with a white beard and seemingly of venerable
years, rose upon his knees and came crawling stealthily
among the sleepers towards the girl ; and judge of my
father's indignation, when he beheld this cowardly mis-
creant strip from her both the coverings and return with
them to his original position. Here he lay down for a
while below his spoils and, as my father imagined,
feigned to be asleep ; but presently he had raised him-
self again upon one elbow, looked with sharp scrutiny at
his companions, and then swiftly carried his hand into
his bosom and thence to his mouth. By the movement
of his jaws he must be eating ; in that camp of famine
he had reserved a store of nourishment ; and while his
companions lay in the stupor of approaching death,
secretly restored his powers.
My father was so incensed at what he saw that he
raised his rifle ; and but for an accident, he has often
declared, he would have shot the fellow dead upon the
spot. How difierent would then have been my history !
But it was not to be : eA^en as he raised the barrel, his
eye lighted on the bear, as it crawled along a ledge some
way below him ; and ceding to the hunter's instinct, it
was at the brute, not at the man, that he discharged his
piece. The bear leaped and fell into a pool of the river ;
the canyon re-echoed the report ; and in a moment the
camp was afoot. With cries that were scarce human,
stuml)ling, falling and throwing each other down, these
starving people rushed upon the quarry ; and before my
father, climbing down by the ledge, had time to reach