[CHAPTER V]
Peter did not know when he fell asleep. He was buried in the sweet-scented cedar and balsam when his father awakened him. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, and it came to him quickly where he was. The fire was out and dawn was breaking up the gloom of the forest. He missed the fire, and the bacon frying over it, and the pot of coffee steaming in the coals. Those were the usual things that greeted him when he woke up in camp. And this morning he was hungry.
They headed straight into the heart of the unexplored timberlands south and west, and with empty hands and no pack on his back Donald McRae talked as cheerfully as though they had a week's rations with them. But his eyes were constantly questing for something to eat, and it occurred to him as a sort of tragedy that he had not tied his rifle to the log. He did not explain to Peter just why he had left it where the police would easily find it.
By midday their hunt for food had become a thrilling adventure to Peter. It stirred his blood even more than thought of their enemies, for the police seemed an interminable distance away now, shut out by miles of wilderness. There was something fascinating about it, too. There were birds about them and rabbit runways in every dip and swamp they came to, and deer and moose and caribou tracks so plentiful in places that they made trails like the hoof-beaten paths of cattle.
But there was nothing they could get at, except porcupines. During the morning they could have killed half a dozen of these animals with clubs, but each time porcupine flesh was suggested for dinner Peter made a grimace of revulsion. Twice they had tried it experimentally on their camping trips and both times it had nauseated him. He insisted he would rather starve than eat any more of that ill-smelling, fatty stuff the porcupine was made of. He would chew spruce gum instead. There was plenty of it on the trees they passed.
"If you get too hungry we'll roast some lily roots," said Donald, "but if you can hold out until night we'll have the feast of our lives."
Peter held out. The sun was still up when they came from heavy timber into a long, narrow meadow running into a swamp on the other side. This was the sort of place Donald McRae had been looking for. In the edge of the swamp were rabbit runways beaten fresh and hard. They chose the site for their camp in the rim of the high timber, and while Peter brought in firewood Donald made snares from another section of boot top. These he set in the runways. It was scarcely more than dusk when the first big snowshoe ran his head through a noose and found himself swinging at the end of a sapling. An hour later he was roasted, and in the light of their fire they divided the feast between them. Peter didn't mind the absence of salt and bread and potatoes. Nothing he could remember had ever tasted quite so good to him as the unseasoned rabbit.
Food and the warmth of the fire made him drowsy, and very soon after they had finished their supper Donald tucked him snugly into the bed of evergreens they had made and covered him with his coat. Peter fell asleep instantly, and for several minutes the man remained on his knees at his side, the smile of tenderness in his face changing slowly into a look of haggard grief. When he rose to his feet the luster had died out of his eyes and years had fallen upon his shoulders. He caught his breath sobbingly as he stared into the wall of chaotic darkness beyond the firelight. It was only Peter who counted now, and this night was the last Peter would be with him. Tomorrow he would be alone, an outlaw, a hunted man running away to save his life. And Peter....