Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/187

 twigs from his eyes and mouth, and stretched his arms and legs to assure himself that there were no bones broken. In his relief at finding himself uninjured—for a few bruises and scratches were nothing—he laughed aloud. But as his eyes fell upon his snow-shoes, half buried in the snow, the laughter died on his lips. The wooden framework of one shoe was smashed hopelessly.

The realization of what that meant to him went through his heart with a stab. Without snow-shoes to carry him over the soft surface, the seven or eight miles of five-foot-deep snow which separated him from safety would be for him, without food and in that overwhelming cold, a barrier not to be passed unless by a miracle. That cold was eating up his reserves of vital warmth and strength with the greed of a wolf-pack. Already he felt it creeping into his bones. A wave of exhaustion swept over him. He shook it off savagely, and picked up the broken snow-shoe. His whole weight had come down upon it in the fall, jamming it through some interstice between the logs at the bottom of the hole, and buckling the framework both length-wise and across. The wreck was complete, and under the circumstances final. In the warmth of the camp, with plenty of stout cord and strips of strong wood, he could have mended it in a few hours. But here, and in this temperature! What was the use of thinking about it?