ere and there a flickering, half-burned timber, and the
red-hot wreck of the tiny stove sticking up in the ruins. As soon as
the ruins were cool enough to approach, Pete picked up a green pole,
and began poking earnestly among them. He had all sorts of vague
hopes. He particularly wanted his axe, a tin kettle, and something to
eat. The axe was nowhere to be found, at least in such a search as
could then be made. The tins, obviously, had all gone to pieces or
melted. But he did, at least, scratch out a black, charred lump about
the size of his fist, which gave forth an appetizing smell. When the
burnt outside had been carefully scraped off, it proved to be the
remnant of a side of bacon. Pete fell to his breakfast with about as
much ceremony as might have sufficed a hungry wolf, the deprivation of
a roof-tree having already taken him back appreciably nearer to the
elemental brute. Having devoured his burnt bacon, and quenched his
thirst by squeezing some half-melted snow into a cup of birch-bark, he
rolled his blankets into a handy pack, squared his shoulders, and took
the trail for Conroy's Camp, fifty miles southwestward.

It was now that Pete Noel began to realize the perils that confronted
him. Without his snowshoes, he found himself almost helpless. Along
the trail the snow was from three to four feet deep, and soft.
There had been no thaws and no hard winds to pack it down. After
floundering ahead for four or five hundred yards he would have to
stop and rest, half reclining. In spite of the ferocious cold, he
was soon drenched with sweat. After a couple of hours of such work, he
found himself consumed with thirst. He had nothing to melt the snow
in; and, needless to say, he knew better than to ease his need by
eating the snow itself. But he hit upon a plan which filled him with
self-gratulation. Lighting a tiny fire beside the trail, under the
shelter of a huge hemlock, he took off his red cotton neckerchief,
filled it with snow, and held it to the flames. As the snow began
to melt, he squeezed the water from it in a liberal stream. But,
alas! the stream was of a colour that was not enticing. He realized,
with a little qualm, that it had not occurred to him to wash that
handkerchief since--well, he was unwilling to say when. For all the
insistence of his thirst, therefore, he continued melting the snow
and squeezing it out, till the resulting stream ran reasonably
clear. Then patiently he drank, and afterward smoke