its
direction or that of the river. My only guide to either is the trail by
which I have just come, and I should lose that in the darkness before I
had gone half a mile. The only thing to do is make a hungry camp, and
make it quick, too, before the light is wholly gone."

Thus deciding, Phil left the trail and hastened towards a bunch of dead
timber that stood a short distance to one side. He scraped the snow from
a prostrate log, and then, using one of his snow-shoes as a shovel, dug
out a small space down to the ground beside it. A little pile of dry
twigs and bark and a few sticks of larger wood were hastily collected
and heaped against the log. When he got his fire well started he would
gather more. Now to whittle a handful of shavings, and then for a blaze.
Oh, how good it would seem! How it would drive away the horrid
loneliness, push back the encroaching shadows, and replace the deadly
chill of the on-coming night with its own genial warmth! It could not
furnish food, of course, and he must endure long hours of hunger, but
even that could be borne with its cheery aid.

And now to light it. Phil had a match-safe in one of his inner pockets,
where he always carried it for just such emergencies as this, and at
length, after a struggle with his close-fitting parka, he drew it forth.
As he opened it and gazed into its empty interior a chill penetrated his
very marrow.

"What a fool I am! what a miserable careless fool!" he cried, in tones
of despair. "I knew it was empty two days ago and meant to refill it.
But I didn't, and now I must suffer the consequences. What shall I do?
What shall I do? A night in this place without a fire will drive me
crazy, even if I don't freeze to death before morning."

As Phil gazed about him in a very agony of apprehension his glance
rested on his rifle leaning against a tree, and a ray of hope entered
his heart. There was fire if he could only capture and control it. How
was it that wrecked sailors, and lost hunters, and all sorts of people
always managed to obtain fire from a gun, or rather from a pistol, which
was practically the same thing? He tried to recall what he had read of
such experiences. Oh yes! It was by flashing powder in the pan. But his
gun hadn't any pan. He had never seen one that had, unless it was
Kurilla's flintlock. Of course, now he remembered, it did have a place
into which the Indian used to pour a little powder every time he wanted
to fire his old blunder