Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/188

 Already he felt the cold benumbing his wits, so he took his bearings and set out once more. He would, at least, keep going to the last gasp. His knapsack he threw away, a now useless burden in the struggle for life. But the snow-shoes he clung to, with a fleeting notion that he might yet do something with them. A mere feather-weight, he slung them on his back in place of the discarded knapsack. But his rifle, carefully cleared of snow, he carried ready for use. It might provide the miracle that was needed to pull him through. For it was food, and food alone, that could save him.

The snow, except in scant patches where it had drifted thin, lay everywhere from four to five feet deep. At every step McLaggan sank, sometimes only to the knee, more often to the thigh, to the waist. He did not walk, he floundered. At first he could keep straight on for several hundred yards before he would have to pause for breath. The exertion, calling into play every muscle of his body, soon warmed him, but he knew this inner warmth, with nothing to feed it, was only the more quickly exhausting him. He prudently moderated his exertions. He half closed his eyes; he banished all thoughts; he concentrated his will upon economizing every ounce of energy in muscle, nerve, or brain—in brain above all, for there, he knew, lay the springs of his will and his vitality. Nevertheless, within less than an hour he found