And the story of old Hugh Glass! Is it not fateful enough to be the
foundation of a tremendous Æschylean drama? A big man he was--old and
bearded. A devil to fight, a giant to endure, and an angel to forgive!
He was in the Leavenworth campaign against the Aricaras, and afterward
he went as a hunter with the Henry expedition. He had a friend--a mere
boy--and these two were very close. One day Glass, who was in advance of
the party, beating up the country for game, fell in with a grizzly; and
when the main party came up, he lay horribly mangled with the bear
standing over him. They killed the bear, but the old man seemed done
for; his face had all the features scraped off, and one of his legs went
wabbly when they lifted him.

It was merely a matter of one more man being dead, so the expedition
pushed on, leaving the young friend with several others to see the old
man under ground. But the old man was a fighter and refused to die,
though he was unconscious: held on stubbornly for several days, but it
seemed plain enough that he would have to let go soon. So the young
friend and the others left the old man in the wilderness to finish up
the job by himself. They took his weapons and hastened after the main
party, for the country was hostile.

But one day old Glass woke up and got one of his eyes open. And when he
saw how things stood, he swore to God he would live, merely for the sake
of killing his false friend. He crawled to a spring near by, where he
found a bush of ripe bull-berries. He waited day after day for strength,
and finally started out to _crawl_ a small matter of one hundred miles
to the nearest fort. And he did it, too! Also he found his friend after
much wandering--and forgave him.