By dint of hard work, he had soon cleared a fairly wide space around him. The exercise had warmed his body and kept his mind from dwelling too much on the seriousness of his plight. From a bush nearby, he gathered an armful of twigs, and from a dead, fallen tree, just beyond the big spruce, sufficient dry bark and moss to start his fire. In an hour’s time, considerably cheered and comforted, he was brewing tea over a roaring blaze.
“Things are not as bad as I thought,” Dick was forced to admit to himself a few minutes later as he gulped down a cup of hot tea and ate sparingly from his supply of emergency rations. “As long as I can crawl around on my hands and knees, I can manage somehow to gather enough wood to keep myself from freezing. By eating very little and drinking plenty of snow water, I can stay here for a week if necessary. After that——”
What would happen after that, Dick did not dare even to conjecture. The thought was too appalling. But surely his ankle would become strong again before a week had elapsed.
“It’s only a bad sprain,” he endeavored to reassure himself. “Perhaps even by tomorrow I’ll be able to hobble around.”
He settled back with a smile on his face and stretched out full length before the blaze. Worn out, mentally and physically, he soon drowsed lightly, only to be awakened by the wolf-cry again, a bloodcurdling howl, which pierced the deep silence in the forest space around him.
“Great Caesar!” sputtered Dick, sitting bolt upright and staring out balefully in the intense darkness. “Troubles never come singly. If I had my hands on the neck of that brute, I’d choke him into silence and insensibility.”
For a brief space he stared, then abruptly his eyes opened wide in astonishment. Out of the velvety blackness, beyond the circle of light made by his campfire, there emerged two fur-coated figures carrying rifles. Slowly, confidently, they came on—in their approach exercising not even the slightest caution.
Dick turned his head indifferently and gazed quietly into the fire. What did he care for the brothers La Lond now? As well die at their hands as to stay here to be eaten by wolves. He did not even look up as the treacherous pair stepped forward within the narrow space he had cleared with his own hands.
“Dick!” shouted a familiar voice.
In wonderment, almost in a stupor, Dick looked up into the smiling, joyful faces of Sandy and Toma.