With a short—almost contemptuous—laugh at his ridiculous incapacity, Dan lowered the gun.
Stupid as they were, the laugh was too much for the birds. They spread their wings.
“Now or never!” exclaimed Dan aloud. He pointed his gun straight at the flock; took no aim, and fired!
The result was that a plump specimen dropped almost at his feet. If he had been able to cheer he would have done so. But he was not, so he thanked God, fervently, instead.
Again the poor man essayed to kindle a fire, but in trying to do this with gunpowder he made the startling discovery that he had only one more charge in his powder-horn. He therefore re-loaded his gun, wiped out the pan and primed with care, feeling that this might be the last thing that would stand between him and starvation. It might have stood between him and something worse—but of that, more hereafter.
Starving men are not particular. That day Dan did what he would have believed to have been, in him, an impossibility—he drank the blood of the bird and ate its flesh raw!
“After all,” thought he, while engaged in this half-cannibalistic deed, “what’s the difference between raw grouse and raw oyster?”
It is but right to add that he did not philosophise much on the subject. Having consumed his meal, he lay down beside his gun and slept the sleep of the weary.