He had plenty of food for breakfast, but he didn't know how many meals he would need before he could get away; so he ate only a little and waited, hoping every minute that somebody would come up on the mountain and find him.
When the day at last dragged around and the sun was going down again in Hudson River, Bill knew that he would have to spend another night on the mountain and he felt pretty bad.
There were only a few mouthfuls of food left. One bottle of water was all gone and the other nearly so. He knew that by that time his folks would feel sure that something had happened and would begin to look for him. That was some comfort.
Far down below, lights shone out from the houses, one by one. Down there was his home. One of those lights was shining out of his window, shining for him, while his mother sat and waited—waited for her boy who never would come back again.
He sobbed aloud and stretched out his hands into the darkness.
"Mother, mother," he whispered, "I wish I hadn't come."
When he awoke in the morning he was frightened to find that the little food which he had saved for his breakfast was gone. Some animal had stolen it in the night.
His ankle was still badly swollen but it did not pain him so much except when he tried to stand on it.
He was hungry and looked around for something that he could eat. A little below the edge of the mountain stood a birch tree. He dragged himself down to it and cut off long strips of the bark. This he chewed for his breakfast, washing it down with a few sips of water, which seemed hardly to wet his parched throat.
"I'll crawl down to the spring, if I can, and die there," he thought. "Maybe they will find me sometime."