oint of the gun wavered
around as it might have done in the hands of a child.

With a short--almost contemptuous--laugh at his ridiculous incapacity,
Dan lowered the gun.

Stupid as they were, the laugh was too much for the birds. They spread
their wings.

"Now or never!" exclaimed Dan aloud. He pointed his gun straight at the
flock; took no aim, and fired!

The result was that a plump specimen dropped almost at his feet. If he
had been able to cheer he would have done so. But he was not, so he
thanked God, fervently, instead.

Again the poor man essayed to kindle a fire, but in trying to do this
with gunpowder he made the startling discovery that he had only one more
charge in his powder-horn. He therefore re-loaded his gun, wiped out
the pan and primed with care, feeling that this might be the last thing
that would stand between him and starvation. It might have stood
between him and something worse--but of that, more hereafter.

Starving men are not particular. That day Dan did what he would have
believed to have been, in him, an impossibility--he drank the blood of
the bird and ate its flesh raw!

"After all," thought he, while engaged in this half-cannibalistic deed,
"what's the difference between raw grouse and raw oyster?"

It is but right to add that he did not philosophise much on the subject.
Having consumed his meal, he lay down beside his gun and slept the
sleep of the weary.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A DESPERATE SITUATION.

Awaking next morning much refreshed, but with a keen appetite for more
grouse, Dan Davidson sat up and reflected. He felt that, although
refreshed, the great weakness resulting from excessive loss of blood
still rendered him almost helpless, and he knew that making new blood
was a process that required good feeding and considerable time. What,
then, was to be done?

He had scarcely asked himself the question when a rustle in the bushes
near him caused him to look quickly round and seize his gun. But the
noise was not repeated, and nothing could be seen to justify alarm.
Still Dan felt that the sound justified caution; he therefore kept his
gun handy, and loosened in its sheath the scalping-knife which he always
carried in his belt--for eating purposes, not for scalping.

Thus he sat for nearly an hour with an uncomfortable sensation that
danger of some sort lurked near him, until he almost fell asleep. Then,
rousing himself he proceeded to breakfast on the bo