Page:Eleven years in the Rocky Mountains and a life on the frontier.djvu/363

Rh, blaming him for causing delays, and often requiring assistance.



To render their situation still more trying, rain began to fall heavily, which with the cold air of the mountains, soon benumbed their exhausted frames. Fearing that should they go to sleep so cold and famished, they might never be able to rise again, on the fourth or fifth evening they resolved to kindle a fire, if by any means they could do so. Dry and broken wood had been plenty enough, but for the rain, which was drenching everything. Neither matches nor flint had they, however, in any case. The night was setting in black with darkness; the wind swayed the giant firs over head, and then they heard the thunder of a falling monarch of the forest unpleasantly near. Searching among the bushes, and under fallen timber for some dry leaves and sticks, Mr. Rector took a bundle of them to the most sheltered spot he could find, and set himself to work to coax a spark of fire out of two pieces of dry wood which he had split