ike a hare or rabbit, came near me. I seized a stone at my
foot and hit the creature on the leg, and broke it. Away it went
limping, still at a rapid pace. I made chase as fast as my sore feet
would let me. I was gaining on the creature, but was afraid that, after
all, it might get into some hole and escape me. This made me exert
myself still more, when I caught sight of a burrow ahead, for which I
suspected it was making. I sprang on, hunger giving an impetus to my
feet, and not a yard from the spot I threw myself forward and caught it,
as it was about to spring into the hole.

The poor creature turned an imploring look at me; but like a savage, as
I felt, I speedily squeezed the life out of it, and in another ten
minutes I had it skinned and roasting away before a fire of sticks,
which I had in the meantime collected. I felt, as I ate the creature,
what reason I had to trust in the care of Providence, for each time,
when most in want, I had been amply supplied with food, and I doubt not
that, had I possessed some botanical knowledge, I should have found a
still larger store of provisions in the productions of the earth. The
creature was rather lean, so that the best half of him only served me
for a meal, and I finished the remainder at night.

The next day I was less fortunate. Towards the evening, as I was
proceeding along an elevated ridge, I saw in the valley below me a black
spot, as if a fire had been there. I hurried down to the place; I was
not mistaken. There were the charred embers of sticks, and round it
were scattered the half-picked bones of grouse, partridges, and ducks,
as if a numerous party had camped there. I looked about, but could find
nothing to indicate that they were my friends, hunger made me do what I
should not otherwise have fancied. I collected all the bones, and with
a pile of sticks, left by my predecessors on the spot, I made a fire, at
which I speedily cooked them. As there was plenty of birch-bark about,
I then built a wigwam and formed a comfortable couch within it, in which
I might pass the night.

These bones were all the food I got that day. Several deer had on the
previous day come skipping around me, fearless of the approach of man.
The next day again hunger assailed me. I had been wishing that some
more deer would come, when a herd came racing by, and when they saw me
they all stopped staring at me, as if to ask why I had come there.

The pangs of hunger just t