Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/234

 a deer, too—but there was nothing save a few shreds of hide.

"The birds and beasts have eaten whatever they may have left," spoke the lieutenant. "Too bad, my lads. However, we're out, and we'll make shift some way. Fetch up another load, while I hunt."

Out he went, with his gun. They managed to bring up another load from the sledges. They heard a gunshot.

"Hooray! Meat for supper, after all."

But when he returned in the darkness he was empty-handed.

"I wounded a deer, and lost him," he reported shortly; and he slightly staggered as he sank down for a moment. "We can do no more to-night. We'll melt snow for drinking purposes; but the deer-*hide is likely to make us ill, in our present condition. We'll keep it, and to-morrow we'll have better luck."

So with a fire and melted snow they passed the night. Nobody else arrived. The doctor and Brown seemed to be a day's march ahead; Baroney and Hugh Menaugh and Bill Gordon were wandering with the horses through this broken high country; and the other eight were toiling as best they could, with the sledges, in separate pairs, seeking a way out also.

The lieutenant started again, early in the morn