The Russian's feet were indeed greatly swollen and inflamed. The skin had been rubbed off in several places, and the wounds had an angry look, their edges being a fiery red, which extended for some distance round them.
"Well, you have plenty of pluck, Alexis, or you never could have gone on walking with such feet as those. I am sure I could not have done so."
"We thought over most difficulties, Godfrey, that we might possibly have to encounter, but not of this."
"No, we did not think of it, though we might really have calculated upon it. After being three or four months without walking twenty yards it is only natural one's feet should go at first. We ought to have brought some soap with us—I do not mean for washing, though we ought to have brought it for that—but for soaping the inside of our stockings. That is a first-rate dodge to prevent feet from blistering. Well, I must see about the fire. I will go up to those trees on the hillside. I daresay I shall be able to find some sticks there for lighting it. These bushes round here will do well enough when it is once fairly burning, but we shall have a great trouble to get them to light to begin with."
A SUPPER OF ROASTED SQUIRRELS.
In half an hour he was back with a large faggot.
"It is lucky," he said, "there is a fallen tree. So we shall have no difficulty about firewood. We ought to have brought a hatchet when we got the other things. These knives are first-rate for cutting meat and that sort of thing, but they are of no use for rough work. My old knife is better."
While he was talking he was engaged in cutting some shavings off the sticks. Then he split up another into somewhat larger pieces, and laying them over the shavings, struck a match, and applied it. The flame shot up brightly, and in five minutes there was an excellent fire, on which the kettle was placed.
"We had better have our dinner first, Godfrey. Then I can go on steadily with these fomentations while you take your gun and look round."