getting through the ordeal as comfortably as possible. He had food
within his reach, and a scant supply of water. He worked out the
question of diet and of using his resources to the best advantage. He
had nothing else to do, and his alert mind seized upon the situation
and brought it down to a fine system.

For instance, he did not open a can of fruit until the prunes were
gone. Then he emptied a can of tomatoes into the bowl as a safeguard
against ptomaine poisoning from the tin, and set the empty can on the
floor. During the warm part of each day he slid open the window by his
bunk and lay with the fresh air fanning his face and lifting the hair
from his aching temples.

He tried to eat regularly and to make the fruit juice save his water
supply. Sometimes he chewed jerked venison from the bag over his head,
but not very often; the salt in the meat made him drink too much. On
the whole, his diet was healthful and in a measure satisfying. He did
not suffer from the want of any real necessity, at any rate. He smoked
a good many cigarettes, but he was wise enough to leave the bottle of
whisky alone after that first terrible time when it helped him through
a severe ordeal.

He had his few books within reach. He read a good deal, to keep from
thinking too much, and he tried to meet the days with philosophic calm.
He might easily be a great deal worse off than he was, he frequently
reminded himself. For instance, if he had been able to build another
room on to his cabin, his bunk and his food supply would have been so
widely separated as to cause him much hardship. There were, he
admitted to himself, certain advantages in living in one small room.
He could lie in bed and reach nearly everything he really needed.

But he was lonesome. So lonesome that there were times when life
looked absolutely worthless; when the blue devils made him their
plaything, and he saw Billy Louise looking scornfully upon him and
loving some other man better; when he saw his name blackened by the
suspicion that he was a rustler--preying upon his neighbors' cattle;
when he saw Buck Olney laughing in derision of his mercy and fixing
fresh evidence against him to confound him utterly.

He had all those moods, and they left their own lines upon his face.
But he had one thing to hearten him, and that was the steady progress
of his broken leg toward recovery. A long, tedious process it was, of
necessity; but as nearly as he could jud