第89章

Some winter bird, duck or goose, might be flying by, or a wandering deer might be passing.He must not lose any such chance.He was more than ever a fierce creature of prey, sitting at the mouth of his den, the rifle across his knee, his tanned face so thin that the cheek bones showed high and sharp, his eyes bright with fever and the fierce desire for prey, and the long, lean body drawn forward as if it were about to leap.

He thought often of dragging himself down to the lake, breaking a hole in the ice, and trying to fish, but the idea invariably came only to be abandoned.He had neither hook nor bait.In the afternoon he chewed the edge of his buckskin hunting shirt, but it was too thoroughly tanned and dry.It gave back no sustenance.He abandoned the experiment and lay still for a long time.

That night he had a slight touch of frenzy, and began to laugh at himself.It was a huge joke! What would Timmendiquas or Thayendanegea think of him if they knew how he came to his end?

They would put him with old squaws or little children.And how Braxton Wyatt and his lieutenant, the squat Tory, would laugh!

That was the bitterest thought of all.But the frenzy passed, and he fell into a sleep which was only a succession of bad dreams.He was running the gauntlet again among the Shawnees.

Again, kneeling to drink at the clear pool, he saw in the water the shadow of the triumphant warrior holding the tomahawk above him.One after another the most critical periods of his life were lived over again, and then he sank into a deep torpor, from which he did not rouse himself until far into the next day.

Henry was conscious that he was very weak, but he seemed to have regained much of his lost will.He looked once more at the fatal left ankle.It had improved greatly.He could even stand upon it, but when he rose to his feet he felt a singular dizziness.

Again, what he had gained in one way he had lost in another.The earth wavered.The smooth surface of the lake seemed to rise swiftly, and then to sink as swiftly.The far slope down which he had shot rose to the height of miles.There was a pale tinge, too, over the world.He sank down, not because of his ankle, but because he was afraid his dizzy head would make him fall.

The power of will slipped away again for a minute or two.He was ashamed of such extraordinary weakness.He looked at one of his hands.It was thin, like the band of a man wasted with fever, and the blue veins stood out on the back of it.He could scarcely believe that the hand was his own.But after the first spasm of weakness was over, the precious will returned.He could walk.Strength enough to permit him to hobble along had returned to the ankle at last, and mind must control the rest of his nervous system, however weakened it might be.He must seek food.

He withdrew into the farthest recess of his covert, wrapped the blanket tightly about his body, and lay still for a long time.

He was preparing both mind and body for the supreme effort.He knew that everything hung now on the surviving remnants of his skill and courage.

Weakened by shock and several days of fasting, he had no great reserve now except the mental, and he used that to the utmost.

It was proof of his youthful greatness that it stood the last test.As he lay there, the final ounce of will and courage came.

Strength which was of the mind rather than of the body flowed back into his veins; he felt able to dare and to do; the pale aspect of the world went away, and once more he was Henry Ware, alert, skillful, and always triumphant.

Then he rose again, folded the blanket, and fastened it on his shoulders.He looked at the snowshoes, but decided that his left ankle, despite its great improvement, would not stand the strain.

He must break his way through the snow, which was a full three feet in depth.Fortunately the crust had softened somewhat in the last two or three days, and he did not have a covering of ice to meet.

He pushed his way for the first time from the lair under the cliff, his rifle held in his ready hands, in order that he might miss no chance at game.To an ordinary observer there would have been no such chance at all.It was merely a grim white wilderness that might have been without anything living from the beginning.But Henry, the forest runner, knew better.Somewhere in the snow were lairs much like the one that he had left, and in these lairs were wild animals.To any such wild animal, whether panther or bear, the hunter would now have been a fearsome object, with his hollow cheeks, his sunken fiery eyes, and his thin lips opening now and then, and disclosing the two rows of strong white teeth.