rotected against the piercing chill of the air. Frequently,
he was forced to halt, in order that he might gather chips for a
fire, and then crouch, shivering over the blaze for a time ere he
dared resume his march. Indeed, as the night drew down on him, he
felt himself so enfeebled, so sensitive to the icy wind, that he
feared to sleep, lest he might never wake. So, for his life's sake,
he kept moving, now by sheer stress of will-power lashing the spent
muscles to movement. From time to time, with ever shortening
intervals, he stopped to make a little fire, over which he huddled
drowsily, but with his will set firm against a moment's yielding
to that longing for a sleep which, of necessity, must merge into
one from which there could be no awakening... In such manful wise,
Donald battled with death through the dragging hours.

When he felt the coming of the sun next morning, the follower of
the Death Trail was minded to count his remaining store of matches.
There were just a score of them. It seemed, then, that, after all,
the end would come not from starvation, but from freezing, for
against the deadly cold he could summon his ally of fire only twenty
times, and without that ally his surrender must be swift. Therefore,
as he went forward now, he endured the sufferings inflicted by the
icy blasts to new limits, jealously hoarding his meager supply of
matches--which had come to, be his milestones as he drew near the
end of Death Trail... Donald gave over the reckoning of time then.
He recked nought of minutes or hours, nought of day or of night.
Subconsciously, he still paused often to make sure that the east
lay straight before him; but the activities of his mind now were
become focused on the ceaseless counting of the matches that measured
his span of life. And, as one after another served his need of
warmth in the kindling of a fire, so his high courage dwindled
steadily, until, when but a single splinter of the precious wood
was left him, he gave over the last pretense of bravery, and shook
cowardly in the clutch of fear. He continued a staggering advance
for a long time, but hope was fled. The desire for food was not so
mordant now. In its stead, a raging thirst tortured tongue and
throat. He resisted a frantic craving to devour the snow, since he
knew well that this would but multiply his torments. Yet, fatigue
and thirst and even the stabbing cold, which would at last be his
executioner, were not the things that s