"I don't feel jest right about leavin' him, Tom," young Jim objected. "'Tain't natteral to desart a man, that way, an' we said we'd stay."
"We said we'd stay to nurse him or bury him, but he's past nursin' an' he ain't quite ripe for buryin', son. He will be, by mornin'; but what difference to him whether he's layin' atop the ground or under the ground? An' that's a matter o' twelve hours to us, an' twelve hours counts a heap, on the Injun trail. The Injuns can't do him any harm. They kin harm us a lot. No; it's time we kin light out, an' if we say he's dead we'll not be lyin', for dead he'll be long 'fore we get to t'other end. Two live men are wuth more'n one dead man, in this country; an' we've done our duty to old Hugh, sech as he is. We'd best take his gun an' fixin's, too; he won't need 'em an' you kin be sartin he wouldn't want the Injuns to have 'em."
When they left, that night, Trapper Glass appeared to be scarcely breathing. He could not possibly last through till morning; and by morning they might be well upon their way. They rode off. It was a mean thing to do--not at all like Jim Bridger if that was young Jim Bridger; but he could not stay alone and they neither of them had any idea that Hugh Glass would be otherwise than dead within a few hours.
When, early in a morning several days afterward, Trapper Hugh opened his tired eyes and gazed weakly around him, he saw nothing astir except the birds and rabbits. He heard nothing. He had faint memory of two companions--knew their names, or thought that he did; but where were they? The camp-fire ashes were cold; no breakfast smoke arose. He saw no packs, no bedding; the bones of the she-bear were scattered and white and dry.
Nobody answered. He tried to sit up; looked for his rifle, felt for his shot-pouch and powder-horn. His two nurses were gone; so were his gun, horn, pouch that held his knife and flint and steel. He had been abandoned; and such a blaze of wrath surged through him that he determined now to live if only to trail those fellows and kill them.
Yes, by thunder, he'd crawl clear to Fort Henry at the Yellowstone and shoot the two in their tracks!
He was too weak to sit or stand, but he managed to draw himself along and find a spring. There he lay, day and night, picking the fruit from the low wild-cherry and buffalo-berry bushes as far as he might reach, and dozing and bathing his wounds; and he got stronger. The tide of life crept higher and higher. Trapper Hugh knew that he was going to live. But he was scarred redly from head to foot, had lost part of his whiskers and part of his hair; was peeled to the bone, in places. What a face he had, although he could not see it!