of them anyway," he said exultantly, looking into his bag
and admiring the beautiful white birds. "Toby said it was some stunt to
shoot ptarmigans. I guess he'll think now that I can shoot most as well
as he can."

With no other thought than that he could find his way to the marsh and
across it to the forest without difficulty, he turned to retrace his
steps.

"Even if I can't see far, I can follow my tracks I made coming in," he
said confidently. "That'll be dead easy."

Every moment the wind was rising, and the storm was increasing in fury.
Before he had reached the marsh, the gale was sweeping the snow before
it in suffocating clouds, and he was forced frequently to turn his back
upon it that he might catch his breath.

Presently Charley realized that he had lost the trail of his snowshoe
prints, but still confident that he could find it he searched first to
the right and then to the left, but nowhere could he discover it.

Then it was that he became anxious, and a vague fear fell upon him, and
he rushed madly about in vain search of some sign that would guide him.
He could scarcely see twenty feet away, and nowhere within his limited
range of vision was a rock or bush or anything that he had ever before
seen. Suddenly he knew that he was lost. The thought fell upon him like
an overwhelming disaster. All at once he was seized by wild terror. He
must find the forest or he would perish! The snow was suffocating him,
and his legs were atremble with the effort he had put forth.

Dazed and uncertain he stood, with the wind swirling the snow about him,
and then, with no sense of direction, like a panic-stricken animal, he
plunged away into the storm.

FOOTNOTE: [5] Old harbour seal.

XVI

A WALL OF SNOW

Several times he fell, and regaining his feet rushed madly and blindly
about in vain hope of finding the lost trail and escaping the doom that
seemed closing in upon him. The snow clouds were like dense walls, and
he, like a child, in puny effort wildly trying to batter them down to
gain his freedom.

Finally exhaustion overtook him, and with it a degree of reason. His
legs were weak and quivering with their effort. He began to realize that
he had been depending upon them to extricate him from the trackless
marsh in which he wandered, instead of using reason. Limp and trembling
as a result of the mad fear that had taken possession of him, and the
tremendous physical exertion he had been putting forth,