Sickened with torture he lay huddled there, Gazing about him with a great despair Proportioned to the might that felt the chain. Far-flung as dawn, collusive sky and plain Stared bleak denial back. Why strive at all?— That vacancy about him like a wall, Yielding as light, a granite scarp to climb! Some little waiting on the creep of time, Abandonment to circumstance; and then—
Here flashed a sudden thought of Henry’s men Into his mind and drove the gloom away. They would be riding westward with the day! How strange he had forgot! That battered leg Or some scalp wound, had set his wits a-beg! Was this Hugh Glass to whimper like a squaw? Grimly amused, he raised his head and saw— The empty distance: listened long and heard— Naught but the twitter of a lonely bird That emphasized the hush. Was something wrong? ‘Twas not the Major’s way to dally long, And surely they had camped not far behind. Now woke a query in his troubled mind— Where was his horse? Again came creeping back The circumstances of the bear’s attack. He had dismounted, thinking at the spring To spend the night—and then the grisly thing— Of course the horse had bolted; plain enough! But why was all the soil about so rough As though a herd of horses had been there? The riddle vexed him till his vacant stare Fell on a heap of earth beside a pit. What did that mean? He wormed his way to it, The newly wakened wonder dulling pain. No paw of beast had scooped it—that was plain. ‘Twas squared; indeed, ‘twas like a grave, he thought. A grave—a grave—the mental echo wrought Sick fancies! Who had risen from the dead? Who, lying there, had heard above his head The ghostly talkers deaf unto his shout?
Now searching all the region round about, As though the answer were a lurking thing, He saw along the margin of the spring An ash-heap and the litter of a camp. Suspicion, like a little smoky lamp That daubs the murk but cannot fathom it, Flung blear grotesques before his groping wit. Had Rees been there? And he alive? Who then? And were he dead, it might be Henry’s men! How many suns had risen while he slept? The smoky glow flared wildly, and he crept, The dragged limb throbbing, till at length he found The trail of many horses westward bound; And in one breath the groping light became A gloom-devouring ecstasy of flame, A dazing conflagration of belief!