sual
in all this, but the man had seen something that made him check his
breathing and set his lips. He knew he might be mistaken, but the
glint he had caught for a moment suggested the barrel of a rifle.

He stood, as he realized instinctively, in the shadow with a great
trunk behind him, and remained so, motionless, with his blood tingling,
because the bushman knows the difficulty of catching the outline of
anything that is still. Then there was a soft snapping, and the glint
became visible, in another place, again, while Alton saw that he was
not mistaken. He was also aware that the free prospector does not
usually wait the approach of a stranger in silence with the rifle, and
it flashed upon him that as the other man had moved there would in
place of a shadowy trunk now be a patch of snow behind him. Alton
regretted he had waited so long, and dropping the deer sprang
backwards, feeling for the sling of his rifle.

He was, however, a second too late, for there was a thin red flash
amidst the undergrowth, and he reeled with a stinging pain somewhere
about his knee. It yielded and grew almost useless under him, and
while his rifle fell with a rattle he lurched into a thicket of
withered fern. For a moment he lay still, his face awry with pain, and
groaned as he strove to draw his leg up beneath him. It felt numbed
and powerless, and, desisting, he strove to collect his scattered wits,
realizing that he had never needed them more than he did just then.

The rifle had fallen outside the thicket where the forest was more open
and there was a sprinkling of snow, and Alton knew that an attempt to
recover it would probably be fatal. He was equally convinced that the
man who had shot him would not have come out on such an errand without
his magazine full, or leave his task unfinished. There was in the
meanwhile no sign of him beyond the smoke that hung about the bushes,
and Alton turning over groaned again more loudly as he felt for his
long-bladed knife. It was not done without a purpose, but he had
little difficulty in simulating a moan of pain, and when he heard a
swish of leaves, lay flat, and dragged himself very softly farther into
the fern.

The wet fronds brushed his face, and here and there his fingers sank
into a patch of snow, but he found its chilly touch curiously pleasant,
and once clawed up a handful and thrust it into his mouth. A numbness
was creeping over him, his head felt curiously heavy, bu