Pat Casey was bound to give them back to me. He must have done so.
I remembered that I had pockets in my waistcoat. I unbuttoned my coat, and there at the bottom in the left-hand pocket of my waistcoat I found my flint and steel. They were of more value to me just then than a purse of gold.
I quickly struck a light, and going down on my knees, by the aid of some dried moss and leaves, and by dint of careful blowing, I soon had a fire started, as we say in the Far West. Eagerly I bent over it. Its genial warmth imparted new life to my chilled limbs and body. Then, sitting down with my feet so close that I almost singed my stockings, I gradually thawed my shoes. How comfortable they felt when I again put them on!
I now began to feel the pangs of hunger, for I had taken nothing since the previous morning. Food I must have at all costs. I even glanced at my poor horse with wolfish eyes.
“I must eat it, if I can get nothing else,” I said to myself; but then again I thought, “By what means shall I reach the fort? I cannot trudge on foot all the distance through the deep snow. I must let my horse live. It would sorely grieve me to have to kill him.”
Thoroughly warmed, I got up with the intention of pushing into the wood and trying to knock over some bird or small beast. There were few young birds at that season not well able to fly out of my way, and the animals of the forest were likely to have been driven under shelter by the snowstorm.
I still had the stick which had served me to mount the hill and make my way over the snow. I had left my pistols in my holsters. I mention this to account for my not now having them. My only weapons, therefore, were my long hunting-knife and this stout stick.
I was, I knew, more likely to find some animals deep in the wood than on the borders, as they would have gone there for shelter. As I went along I anxiously examined every tree I passed in search of birds or the traces of squirrels or any other of the smaller inhabitants of the woods.
Now and then a squirrel would look out of its hole, and on seeing me would be off to the tree-top. Birds were rare, and being perfectly silent at this season, their notes did not betray their whereabouts. The evening was drawing on. I considered whether I could manage to set any traps. It would take time to construct them, and I was starving.
As I wandered along, I found myself again near the borders of the wood with a thick bush near me. At that moment I caught sight of an animal of nearly three feet in length, which I at once recognised as a “peeshoo,” as the French Canadians call it, though properly denominated the Canadian lynx. Its fur was of a dark grey, freckled with black. It had powerful limbs, and thick, heavily-made feet. It was still when I first caught sight of it, but presently it commenced a succession of bounds with its back slightly arched, all the feet coming to the ground at the same moment.