Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/147

Rh to Margaret on the second day that they sailed south. "He had no food to stay. He and Thomas before he died had used almost all the supplies left in the cabin. Hedon couldn't count on getting enough game to see him through another winter; and he wouldn't have had time to reach a game country if he waited till the freeze-up in the fall. He was practically driven to go over the ice when he did, no matter how he found it."

"I have been realising that," Margaret admitted.

"I think after he crossed the island for the last time he shot that bear and saw the ice was in such bad shape that he waited there on the chance that the bear might mean there was enough more game to carry him through. Then he got nothing more; knew that he had to go on, though the ice was getting worse, so built his cairns and went on."

"I think that may be so," she again agreed quietly, and moved away. That afternoon there came into sight the first of the islands which they must search for proof of whether Eric, driven south by hunger over the