rational, and once more he was
chiefly interested in the land of little sticks and the cache by the
river Dease.

He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets into strips and bound his
bleeding feet. Also, he recinched the injured ankle and prepared himself
for a day of travel. When he came to his pack, he paused long over the
squat moose-hide sack, but in the end it went with him.

The snow had melted under the rain, and only the hilltops showed white.
The sun came out, and he succeeded in locating the points of the compass,
though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps, in his previous days'
wanderings, he had edged away too far to the left. He now bore off to
the right to counteract the possible deviation from his true course.

Though the hunger pangs were no longer so exquisite, he realized that he
was weak. He was compelled to pause for frequent rests, when he attacked
the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches. His tongue felt dry and
large, as though covered with a fine hairy growth, and it tasted bitter
in his mouth. His heart gave him a great deal of trouble. When he had
travelled a few minutes it would begin a remorseless thump, thump, thump,
and then leap up and away in a painful flutter of beats that choked him
and made him go faint and dizzy.

In the middle of the day he found two minnows in a large pool. It was
impossible to bale it, but he was calmer now and managed to catch them in
his tin bucket. They were no longer than his little finger, but he was
not particularly hungry. The dull ache in his stomach had been growing
duller and fainter. It seemed almost that his stomach was dozing. He
ate the fish raw, masticating with painstaking care, for the eating was
an act of pure reason. While he had no desire to eat, he knew that he
must eat to live.

In the evening he caught three more minnows, eating two and saving the
third for breakfast. The sun had dried stray shreds of moss, and he was
able to warm himself with hot water. He had not covered more than ten
miles that day; and the next day, travelling whenever his heart permitted
him, he covered no more than five miles. But his stomach did not give
him the slightest uneasiness. It had gone to sleep. He was in a strange
country, too, and the caribou were growing more plentiful, also the
wolves. Often their yelps drifted across the desolation, and once he saw
three of them slinking away before his path.

Another night; and in the morn