those
forests. But they were not the worst thing he faced. To be eaten were
perhaps preferable to dying little by little, of hunger and thirst. He
had been near starvation, twice in his life; and once he had been
thirsty,--that is to say, _thirsty_,--and God save him from dying of
thirst! But wait! He hesitated; then held his breath; and in a total
suspension of thought slowly reached his hand down into a side pocket
of his trousers. And then he almost yelled aloud for joy. His
pocketknife was there!

Meanwhile--Trixy. It was cruel not to be able to end her suffering.
What had become of the gun? It was in his hand when he toppled over
the edge of the platform, and must have fallen with him. So it could
not be far away, though perhaps buried out of sight. He began
patiently to inspect every square foot of the ground around him, as
far as he could trust his eyes to see clearly, separating the space
into imaginary segments of a circle, and scrutinizing each of them
until he had set apart every tuft of grass from every other tuft, and
every stone from its neighbors. Minute after minute, with dogged
perseverance, he kept himself at this exhausting task until the sweat
was rolling down, his face, and his eyes burned deep in his head. Then
suddenly something leaped inside of him,--some nerve that was quicker
than thought in its response to vision.

"Ah!"

The gun lay against a stone, its muzzle upward, at a distance of about
forty feet, beyond and somewhat to the left of Trixy. It would take
some crawling; and that would hurt. But when he had fixed the gun's
position in his mind, so that he might not miss it, he set his teeth
together, and started.

No great distance, after all, is forty feet. That is to say, no great
distance after you've covered it. And the pain did not matter now. He
lay on the ground again, flattened out, panting and gazing up at the
blue sky. The sweat stood in big cold drops on his face; and he
trembled as if stricken with ague. He could not shoot in that
condition; he must rest, and wait. But the thirst was torture now.

After a time, he turned himself half around in order to face Trixy,
and rested his right elbow on the ground, with the gun up in the air.

"Good-by, Trixy!" he said softly.

But wait! How many shots left? He examined the revolver. Two! For an
instant he was stricken again with dread. Then his left hand felt for
the belt at his waist; and he laughed nervously. What a state he w