Of course there was a general rush to the rescue. Only a few men were ordered to remain to guard the camp, while the remainder mounted their horses and galloped towards the gorge where Charlie had been entombed. On arriving, they found that Bruin had worked with such laudable zeal that nothing but the tip of his tail was seen sticking out of the hole which he had dug. The hunters could not refrain from laughing as they sprang to the ground, and standing in a semicircle in front of the hole, prepared to fire. But Crusoe resolved to have the honour of leading the assault. He seized fast hold of Bruin's flank, and caused his teeth to meet therein. Caleb backed out at once and turned round, but before he could recover from his surprise a dozen bullets pierced his heart and brain. "Now, lads," cried Cameron, setting to work with a large wooden shovel, "work like niggers. If there's any life left in the horse, it'll soon be smothered out unless we set him free." The men needed no urging, however. They worked as if their lives depended on their exertions. Dick Varley, in particular, laboured like a young Hercules, and Henri hurled masses of snow about in a most surprising manner. Crusoe, too, entered heartily into the spirit of the work, and, scraping with his forepaws, sent such a continuous shower of snow behind him that he was speedily lost to view in a hole of his own excavating. In the course of half-an-hour a cavern was dug in the mound almost close up to the cliff, and the men were beginning to look about for the crushed body of Dick's steed, when an exclamation from Henri attracted their attention. "Ha! mes ami, here am be one hole." The truth of this could not be doubted, for the eccentric trapper had thrust his shovel through the wall of snow into what appeared to be a cavern beyond, and immediately followed up his remark by thrusting in his head and shoulders. He drew them out in a few seconds, with a look of intense amazement. "Voilà! Joe Blunt. Look in dere, and you shall see fat you vill behold." "Why, it's the horse, I do b'lieve!" cried Joe. "Go ahead, lads!" So saying, he resumed his shovelling vigorously, and in a few minutes the hole was opened up sufficiently to enable a man to enter. Dick sprang in, and there stood Charlie close beside the cliff, looking as sedate and, unconcerned as if all that had been going on had no reference to him whatever. The cause of his safety was simple enough. The precipice beside which he stood when the avalanche occurred overhung its base at that point considerably, so that when the snow descended a clear space of several feet wide was left all along its base. Here Charlie had remained in perfect comfort until his friends dug him out. Congratulating themselves not a little on having saved the charger and bagged a grizzly bear, the trappers remounted, and returned to the camp.