try, and that reminds me of a thing which happened to a man I know.
He was a quiet man, and quite harmless so long as nobody worried him,
but generally held on with a tight grip to his own, and he once got his
hands into something another man wanted. That was how the fuss began."

There was a little pause, during which Alton glanced bewilderedly at
his comrade, and Deringham glanced round as he poured himself out a
whisky and seltzer.

"It's not an uncommon beginning," said Forel. "What was the end?"

"There isn't any," said Seaforth, "but I can tell you the middle. One
day the quiet man, who was living by himself way up in the bush, went
out hunting, and as he had eaten very little for a week he was
tolerably hungry. Well, when he had been out all day be got a deer,
and was packing it home at night when he struck a belt of thick timber.
The man was played out from want of food, the deer was heavy, but he
dragged himself along thinking of his supper, until something twinkled
beneath a fir. He jumped when he saw it, but he wasn't quick enough,
and went down with a bullet in him. His rifle fell away from him where
he couldn't get it without the other man seeing him, and he was
bleeding fast, but still sensible enough to know that nobody would
start out on a contract of that kind without his magazine full. It was
a tolerably tight place for him--the man was worn out, and almost
famishing, and he lay there in the snow, getting fainter every minute,
with one leg no use to him."

Seaforth looked round as though to see what impression he had made, and
though all the faces were turned towards him it was one among them his
eyes rested on. Deringham was leaning forward in his chair with
fingers closed more tightly about the glass he held than there seemed
any necessity for. His eyes were slightly dilated, and Seaforth
fancied he read in them a growing horror.

"He crawled away into the bush?" said somebody.

"No, sir," said Seaforth, "he just wriggled into the undergrowth and
waited for the other man."

"Waited for him?" said Forel.

"Yes," said Seaforth. "That is what he did, and when the other man
came along peering into the bushes, just reached out and grabbed him by
the leg. Then they both rolled over, and I think that must have been a
tolerably grim struggle. There they were, alone, far up in the bush,
and probably not a living soul within forty miles of them."

Seaforth stopped again and reached out fo