. Then they rested a half hour, ate
a little venison, and smoked a pipe.

An hour after noon they repeated the rest. Thorpe rose with a certain
physical reluctance. The Indian seemed as fresh--or as tired--as when
he started. At sunset they took an hour. Then forward again by the dim
intermittent light of the moon and stars through the ghostly haunted
forest, until Thorpe thought he would drop with weariness, and was
mentally incapable of contemplating more than a hundred steps in
advance.

"When I get to that square patch of light, I'll quit," he would say to
himself, and struggle painfully the required twenty rods.

"No, I won't quit here," he would continue, "I'll make it that birch.
Then I'll lie down and die."

And so on. To the actual physical exhaustion of Thorpe's muscles was
added that immense mental weariness which uncertainty of the time and
distance inflicts on a man. The journey might last a week, for all he
knew. In the presence of an emergency these men of action had actually
not exchanged a dozen words. The Indian led; Thorpe followed.

When the halt was called, Thorpe fell into his blanket too weary even to
eat. Next morning sharp, shooting pains, like the stabs of swords, ran
through his groin.

"You come," repeated the Indian, stolid as ever.

When the sun was an hour high the travellers suddenly ran into a trail,
which as suddenly dived into a spruce thicket. On the other side of it
Thorpe unexpectedly found himself in an extensive clearing, dotted with
the blackened stumps of pines. Athwart the distance he could perceive
the wide blue horizon of Lake Michigan. He had crossed the Upper
Peninsula on foot!

"Boat come by to-day," said Injin Charley, indicating the tall stacks of
a mill. "Him no stop. You mak' him stop take you with him. You get train
Mackinaw City tonight. Dose men, dey on dat train."

Thorpe calculated rapidly. The enemy would require, even with their
teams, a day to cover the thirty miles to the fishing village of
Munising, whence the stage ran each morning to Seney, the present
terminal of the South Shore Railroad. He, Thorpe, on foot and three
hours behind, could never have caught the stage. But from Seney only one
train a day was despatched to connect at Mackinaw City with the Michigan
Central, and on that one train, due to leave this very morning, the
up-river man was just about pulling out. He would arrive at Mackinaw
City at four o'clock of the afternoon, where he wo