himself in it, and was soon asleep before the fire. He slept
long and deeply, and although, when he awoke, the day had fully come,
the coals were not yet out entirely. He arose, but such a violent pain
from his left ankle shot through him that he abruptly sat down again. As
he bad feared, it had swollen badly during the night, and he could not
walk.

In this emergency Henry displayed no petulance, no striving against
unchangeable circumstance. He drew up more wood, which he had stacked
against the cliff, and put it on the coals. He hung up the blanket once
more in order that it might hide the fire, stretched out his lame leg,
and calmly made a breakfast off the last of his venison. He knew he was
in a plight that might appall the bravest, but he kept himself in
hand. It was likely that the Iroquois thought him dead, crushed into a
shapeless mass by his frightful slide of fifteen hundred feet, and he
had little fear of them, but to be unable to walk and alone in an icy
wilderness without food was sufficient in itself. He calculated that
it was at least a dozen miles to "The Alcove," and the chances were a
hundred to one against any of his comrades wandering his way. He looked
once more at his swollen left ankle, and he made a close calculation.
It would be three days, more likely four, before he could walk upon it.
Could he endure hunger that long? He could. He would! Crouched in his
nest with his back to the cliff, he had defense against any enemy in
his rifle and pistol. By faithful watching he might catch sight of some
wandering animal, a target for his rifle and then food for his stomach.
His wilderness wisdom warned him that there was nothing to do but sit
quiet and wait.

He scarcely moved for hours. As long as he was still his ankle troubled
him but little. The sun came out, silver bright, but it had no warmth.
The surface of the lake was shown only by the smoothness of its expanse;
the icy covering was the same everywhere over hills and valleys. Across
the lake he saw the steep down which he had slid, looming white and
lofty. In the distance it looked perpendicular, and, whatever its
terrors, it had, beyond a doubt, saved his life. He glanced down at his
swollen ankle, and, despite his helpless situation, he was thankful that
he had escaped so well.

About noon he moved enough to throw up the snowbanks higher all around
himself in the fashion of an Eskimos house. Then he let the fire die
except some coals that