x, a
mass of blood-smeared, silvery fur, was in some way mixed up with him.
She saw as she came nearer that the snow was disturbed round about them,
and discolored [v]copiously, yellow, and in places bright red, with
congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear now and no emotion; all her
mind was engaged with the clear, bleak perception of the fact before
her. She did not care to call to him again. His head was hidden by the
lynx's body, as if he was burrowing underneath the creature; his legs
were twisted about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.

Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came nearer, Trafford moved. A
hand came out and gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a
dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson with frozen blood;
he pushed the gray beast aside, rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve
across his eyes, stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He had
fainted.

Marjorie was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed as a woman in a
shop. In another moment she was kneeling by his side. She saw, by the
position of his knife and the huge rip in the beast's body, that he had
stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head; he must have shot and
wounded it and then fallen upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons,
and hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly injured--how, she
could not tell. It was evident that he must freeze if he lay here, and
it seemed to her that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him to
protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. The lynx was already
rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl,--and the torn skin and clot upon
Trafford's face were stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise
him. She turned him over on his back--how heavy he seemed?--and forced
brandy between his teeth. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she poured
a little brandy on his wounds.

She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, and back at his face.
Then she gave him more brandy, and his eyelids flickered. He moved his
hand weakly. "The blood," he said, "kept getting in my eyes."

She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face, and glanced at his leg.
Something ought to be done to that, Marjorie thought. But things must be
done in order.

The woman stared up at the darkling sky with its gray promise of snow,
and down the slopes of the mountain. Clearly they must stay the night
here. They were too high for wood among these rocks, but three or four
hundr