burned up
brightly. The flame leaped up and caught his shirt. Holding the
burning stick in his mouth he slapped the fire with the palm of his
one free hand and soon smothered it, before it had done more than
scorch the skin of his chest. The cloth of his trousers charred under
the fire and held a constant heat against his body, and the pain from
the blistering wound almost made him forget his desperation. Twice he
started impulsively to fling away the tiny brand, but quick
remembrance of his desperate situation stopped the instinctive
movement, and, with grinding teeth, he held it again under the rope.
The smell of the burning flesh rose to his nostrils and sickened him.
He felt himself turning faint. "I can not stand it!" he groaned and
flung away the burning twig. In an instant he realized what he had
done, and stooping over he tried to reach it where it blazed upon the
ground. But it was too far away. In an agony of hopelessness he seized
the rope with his one free hand and jerked it with all his strength.
It broke at the burned place and left him free as far as the hips,
although the left arm was still bound to his body.

An empty tin can caught his eye in the grass a little way off. It was
out of his reach, but he saw a stick on the ground part way around the
tree. By twisting and stretching his body to the utmost he could reach
the stick, and by its aid he soon had the can in his hand. The top had
been almost cut out, and holding the can in his hand and the flying
leaf of tin in his teeth he worked and twisted and pulled until he
tore it out. Its edge was sharp and jagged, and sawing and cutting
with it he soon freed himself from the remaining bonds of rope. As the
last one dropped away and he stood up and stretched himself in the
shade of the pine tree he found that he was trembling like a leaf and
that a cold sweat covered him from head to foot. Shivering, he stepped
out into the hot sunshine.

But he had no time to waste on a nervous collapse. He found some tea
in the pack, and hastily stirring up the embers of the breakfast fire,
he made the coffee pot full of a brew as strong as he could drink.
There was also part of a small sack of flour, and he quickly mixed a
paste of flour and water and spread it over the deep, blistered burn
on his abdomen. Then, with a can of baked beans in one hand and the
coffee pot of tea in the other, he started down the canyon.

The tiny stream from the spring grew smaller and s