Hal groped his way through another jungle day and just as the shadows began to creep through the forest he came upon an almost overgrown trail. He was overjoyed, for it was the first indication he had seen that something else besides animal life had trod that lonely region. Also, he could see in the deepening gloom that the foliage and trees became more attenuated from this point on.
Did it mean that he was approaching a settlement? Civilization? Even in his extreme joy he dared not hope for that much. But the anticipation of seeing a human being was quite enough. That and a drink of cool water was all he asked for.
His hand hurt him constantly and he found it difficult to use it at all. Consequently he went around picking up the wood for his fire with his left hand, which seemed to take him considerably longer. And when night closed in he had only enough to burn for a few hours.
He decided to make the best of it—in point of fact, he felt too utterly weary and feverish to do otherwise. Just then he was powerless to do aught but spread out his flannel coat and lie down. The making of campfires was beginning to get on his nerves.
But he managed another fire, hoping against hope that it would be the last. He piled onto it all the wood that he had gathered, then lay down on the spread coat and thought over the day which he had just spent.
He had killed two fowls which meant two bullets less in his gun. Also he was down to two cigarettes and the same number of matches. It was a matter of necessity that he reach some sort of settlement that next day. A horrible chill shook him from head to foot, when he thought of what a time he would have if another day’s tramping brought him no more than the day just closed.
Finally he got to sleep and tossed for two hours, dreaming horrible dreams. When he awakened, the fire was dead and he found himself besieged with mosquitoes. There was no brushing them off and even when he used up his next to the last match to light a cigarette and smoke them out, he had little or no success.
The itch and sting of them drove him to distraction, and after an hour he gave up all thought of trying to sleep. Then for a long interval he paced up and down his little clearing with his coat pulled about his head. After that proved uncomfortable he decided to grope his way through the dark and take his chances. Anything to keep going.
He did.
He hadn’t gone but five hundred feet when he remembered about the trail and its promise for the morrow. What was getting into him that he could forget that so soon? Was he delirious? Certainly he felt he would be if he couldn’t sleep some more somewhere and rest his feverish, aching body. But the memory of the trail became very vivid, very promising then, and he decided not to go one step further.