onely and afraid, in the shadow of the inert
spruce, under the gray sky.

She could hardly summon strength for the evening's work of cutting fuel.
The blade would not drive with its old force into the wood. The blaze
itself burned dully; and she could not make it leap and crackle with its
old cheer. And further misfortune was in store for her when she crept
into the cave to prepare Ben's supper.

A pack rat--one of those detested rodents known so well to all northern
peoples--had carried off in her absence two of the three remaining
sticks of jerked caribou. For a moment she gazed in unbelieving and
speechless horror, then made a frenzied search in the darkened corners
of the cabin.

This was no little tragedy: the two sticks of condensed and concentrated
protein might have kept Ben alive for a few days more. It was disaster,
merciless and sweeping. And the brave heart of the girl seemed to break
under the blow.

The hot, bitter tears leaped forth; but she suppressed the bitter,
hopeless sobs that clutched at her throat. She must not let Ben know of
this catastrophe. Likely in his stupor he would not understand; yet she
must not take the chance. She must nourish the spark of hope in his
breast to the last hour. She walked to the mouth of the cave; and Famine
itself stood close, waiting in the shadows. She gazed out into the
gathering gloom.

The tears blinded her eyes at first. Slowly the dark profile of the
spruce against the gray sky penetrated to her consciousness: the somber
beauty of the wilderness sky line that haunts the woodsman's dreams.
With it came full realization of the might and the malevolency of these
shadowed wilds she had battled so long. They had got her down at last;
they had crushed her and beaten her, and had held up to scorn her
sacrifice and her mortal strength. She knew the wild wood now: its
savage power, its remorselessness, and yet, woods girl that she was, she
could not forget its dark and moving beauty.

The forest was silent to-night. Not a twig cracked or a branch rustled.
It was hushed, breathless, darkly sinister. All at once her eyes peered
and strained into the dusk.

Far across the valley, beyond the beaver marsh and on the farther shore
of the lake she saw a little glimmer of light through the rift in the
trees. She dared not believe in its reality at first. Perhaps it was a
trick of her imagination only, a hallucination born of her starvation,
child of her heartfelt prayer