" she replied simply. And then, on a sudden thought:
"There should be grouse too, shouldn't there?"

"Perhaps."

"I learned to kill grouse with my rifle."

He looked at her with a wicked grin. This time he had her!

"How many cartridges have you?" he asked.

She ran for her belt, and counted the cartridges.

"Twenty-seven."

"So. If you never miss, you'll get twenty-seven grouse. That would
mean twenty-seven, meals. One meal a day, twenty-seven days. I'd still
be on my back, our ammunition would be gone, and--"

"Don't!" she cried, in tears. "I wasn't thinking."

"Never mind!" he replied, almost gently. "But we'll deny ourselves the
grouse."

"Yes, it's got to be the deer. I'll begin now."

"No, there's something else that must be done first."

"What is it?"

"We've got to move."

"For shelter, you mean?"

"Partly. But look there!"

He pointed to the dead body of Trixy.

"It will be easier--and perhaps even nicer--to move me than poor
Trixy. See that big pine yonder--the one that stands out from the
forest? Well, you and Tuesday must drag me there."

"But how?"

He explained his plan to her, and she set herself at once to executing
it. And her spirits rose again; for she thought he had abandoned his
desperate resolution. So, indeed, he had--for the moment. But he had
deliberately beguiled her; their situation he knew to be quite
unchanged in its inevitable termination, since a food supply would
save them from starvation only to deliver them to the snow; and he
must disarm her of suspicion in order to find a way to send her back
on the trail. For he had reflected on the implication of tragic
finality in the speech that had surprised and disturbed him; and he
did not doubt that when the time should come, and she should find
herself alone, her high resolve would prove to have been mere
emotional exaggeration.

Mounted on Tuesday, Marion attacked the boughs of a small pine with
the hatchet until she had severed three large branches, to which she
tied Haig's rope, and hauled them back to the camp. Of these branches
Haig contrived a crude drag, on which he crawled, and lay flat; the
free end of the rope was hitched to the horn of Tuesday's saddle; and
the journey was begun. Twice the saddle slipped, and progress was
interrupted while Marion tightened the cinches. Once the drag itself
came to pieces, and Haig was left sprawling on the ground. But
eventually, with no more serious injury to Haig than