s, the first thing Donald
sensed was that something pleasantly warm lay upon his face. After
a while, he discovered that this gentle glow must be from the sun.

"How's this?" he said to himself. "The whole camp must have slept
late," and he struggled to a sitting posture, only to give vent to
a groan of agony.

His head throbbed and pained him horribly, and he pressed his hand
to the aching place only to find that a huge bruise and swelling
had appeared overnight. Then, disjointed thoughts began to link
themselves together, and his addled brain cleared itself with a
violent effort. He looked about staringly, and took in the scene:
the cabin, the hole where Peter had camped, his own fire.

"Nobody's here," he said, blankly; "that's funny."

Flashes of half-truth commenced to lighten the darkness of his
mind, and he pressed his hands against his temples hard, telling
himself not to go mad--that everything would come out all right.
No one was in sight, the fires were almost dead, the cabin door
was open, so that he could see that the place was unoccupied. Then,
he looked for stars, and laughed, because the sun was up.

But the thought of the stars set him on the right track, and,
closing his jaws tightly on the fear that now took possession of
him, he staggered about from one spot to another, working out the
situation piece by piece. At last, the whole truth and every event
of the day and night before came back to him with a rush. He sat
down abruptly, and dry sobs shook him... He was weary and hungry
and weak, but his mind was clear again, and he thanked God for
that. So near had he come to concussion of the brain from old
Maria's vicious club!

When he had recovered a little, he made another circuit of the
camp. Like a child in the midst of a group of grinning wolves, he
was helpless in the center of absolute desolation. Neither dog,
sledge, food, nor covering had they left him. He was stripped of
everything except a hunting-knife, which he luckily wore beneath
his caribou shirt. Like Andre stepping from his balloon in the
snowy arctic wastes, McTavish might have been dropped solitary
where he was by some huge, passing bird.

CHAPTER XIII

A RESCUE AND A SURPRISE

There was in Donald, as in all who battle with the monstrous moods
of nature, a certain calm fatalism, or acceptance of the inevitable.
When he had recovered his self-possession and the full use of his
faculties, he got to his feet again, and