He looked eagerly about for a herdsman or a shepherd boy, for even the tiniest Indian lad would have been welcomed just then; but none was to be seen. In his keen disappointment he became filled with wrath at the unoffending goats, and stepping forward with an angry gesture he bade them begone. For an instant they seemed bewildered at such unaccustomed treatment, and stood irresolute; but as Todd took another step towards them they recognized him for an enemy; and scampering away, were quickly lost to sight amid the surrounding trees.
Even before they disappeared the hungry boy regretted his hasty action. "For," he said to himself, "I might have captured one of them, and so have laid in a supply of food; or I might have milked the mother of that kid. What a chump I am, anyway. Seems to me I am always acting first and reflecting afterwards. I wonder if I can't overtake and make friends with them even now?"
Thus thinking, he started in pursuit of the goats; but though he saw them several times as they skipped among the trees, they easily eluded his feeble efforts to catch them, for he was too weak to run, and they were too well assured of his unfriendly intentions to allow him to approach them.
"If I only had my rifle," sighed the lad. "Though what would be the good of it anyway, for I haven't a fire nor any means of making one, and hungry as I am I don't believe I could eat raw-goat. How do people obtain fire under such circumstances anyhow? Matches? I haven't any. A burning-glass? I don't suppose there is such a thing within five hundred miles of this place. Rubbing two dry sticks together? That's all nonsense, and I don't believe it can be done, for I've tried it, and never succeeded in getting so much as a curl of smoke, let alone fire. I remember reading about some fellow up in Alaska doing it. Serge Belcofsky—yes, that was his name; but I don't believe he ever really did. That same Serge made a fire another time with brimstone and feathers, or at least the book said so; but as I haven't either of those things, I don't see that it does me any good to remember it.
"Then there was Phil Ryder, who made a fire by cutting open one of his cartridges, rubbing powder on his handkerchief, and shooting into it with his rifle. I have plenty of cartridges, and so could get the powder, but haven't any rifle—so that plan won't work. Flint and steel? That's a way you hear a good deal about, though I never saw any one really try it. Still, I suppose it can be done, and my knife will furnish the steel if I can only find a flint. I wonder what a flint looks like, anyway?"
By this time Todd had returned wearily to the hut and was sitting on the stone that formed its doorstep. Now he began striking at this with the back of his sheath-knife, and finally thought he saw a spark fly from the point of contact; but it was such a fleeting thing, and disappeared so instantly, that he could not be certain.
"Even if it was a spark," he said to himself, "how could anybody make a fire from it? I should want one as big as those that fly from red-hot horseshoes when the blacksmith pounds them, though I doubt if I could get a blaze even then, they go out so quickly. So, Todd Chalmers, you might as well make up your mind to go without a fire, and eat your food raw—that is, if you get any at all, which looks very doubtful just now.
"Oh dear! What do people do when they are cast away on desert islands? Not that this is one, but it's a desert valley, which is a great deal worse, for the others are always in the tropics, and have bread-fruit and things. And then the people always have wrecks to get supplies from, the same as Robinson Crusoe did. If I only had such a snap as he had I wouldn't say a word. Plenty of provisions, muskets, cutlasses, clothing, turtles, grapes, and pieces of eight, besides the knowledge of how to start a fire and make all sorts of things. No wonder he was grateful and contented. He ought to have been. And the Swiss Family Robinson. There's another cheerful crowd who had everything they wanted, and more than they knew what to do with. I just wish I knew what any of those chaps would do right here in my place at this very minute. I guess they'd find out what soft times they had in being wrecked where they were and as they were instead of the way I am. I suppose, though, they would start right off into the woods, where they would run across all sorts of fruits to eat and animals waiting to be cooked, besides everything they needed to make houses and clothing of, so that inside of two weeks they'd be living as comfortably and happily as though they were right alongside a Baltimore market. They'd know how to make a fire without matches too in at least a dozen different ways. That's what would happen if they were book people; but if they were real live folks like I am I don't believe they'd know any more how to get a square meal than I do at this minute.
"Going into the woods, though, and hunting for something to eat isn't a bad idea. There must be nuts or berries, or at least roots that would keep a fellow from starving. I suppose some of them will be poisonous and others won't, and the only way to find out which is which will be to eat them. The poisonous ones will kill you and the others won't. At the same time I shall surely die of hunger if I stay here doing nothing, and so here goes for a breakfast."
Up to this time Todd had been so certain of finding people who would supply him with food, that while fully realizing how faint and weak he was growing for want of it, he had not regarded his situation as perilous. From the moment of discovering the beautiful valley with its abundant water, he had felt that all real danger was over. He had imagined that the natives, after feeding him and allowing him a day's rest in which to regain strength, would willingly guide him to the river in return for the handsome reward that he knew he could safely promise them in his brother's name. Now that there did not appear to be any natives nor any food, it suddenly dawned upon our lad that he was very little better off in this beautiful place than he had been amid all the horrors of the Painted Desert, and it was with a decided feeling of uneasiness that he set forth on his search for food.