being in dense forest.
The three soon had their lines in water, and they waited full of
anticipation, but they waited in vain until long after night had come.
Not one of the three received a bite. The lines floated idly.

"Every lake in the mountains except one is full of fish--except one!"
exclaimed Robert bitterly, "and this is the one!"

"No, it is not that," said Tayoga gravely. "It means that the face
of Areskoui is still turned from us, that the good Sun God does not
relent for our unknown sin. We must have offended him deeply that he
should remain angry with us so long. This lake is swarming with fish,
like the others of the mountains, but he has willed that not one
should hang upon our hooks. Why waste time?"

He drew his line from the water, wound it up carefully and replaced
it in his pack. The others, after a fruitless wait, imitated him,
convinced that he was right. Then, after infinite pains, as before,
they built two fires again, and slept between them. But the next
morning all three were weak. Their vitality had declined fast in the
night, and the situation became critical in the extreme.

"We must find food or we die," said Willet. "We might linger a long
time, but soon we won't have the strength to hunt, and then it would
only be a question of when the wolves took us."

"I can hear them howling now on the slopes," said Tayoga. "They know
we are here, and that our strength is declining. They will not face
our rifles, but will wait until we are too weak to use them."

"What is your plan, Dave?" asked Robert.

"There must be game on the slopes. What say you, Tayoga?"

"If Areskoui has willed for game to be there it will be there. He
will even send it to us. And perhaps he has decided that he has now
punished us enough."

"It certainly won't hurt for us to try, and perhaps we'd better
separate. Robert, you go west; Tayoga, you take the eastern slopes,
and I'll hunt toward the north. By night we'll all be back at this
spot, full-handed or empty-handed, as it may be, but full-handed, I
hope."

He spoke cheerfully, and the others responded in like fashion. Action
gave them a mental and physical tonic, and bracing their weak bodies
they started in the direction allotted to each. Robert forgot, for a
little while, the terrible hunger that seemed to be preying upon his
very fiber, and, as he started away, showed an elasticity and buoyancy
of which he could not have dreamed himself capable five minute