All about was beauty, but the dull gray of the clouds was in my brain also. I felt heavy and tired. I had slept badly.
Slowly, I tugged myself into a better position, ever careful of my leg. I forced myself to think, to consider. First, a fire, and some chicory. A hot cup might help.
The forest was silent. The stream rustled along, making no unfamiliar sound. Hunting today would be all but useless. True, I might startle a deer from its bed, but I could never get my crutch dropped and my bow in action in time for a kill.
After the chicory I would check the snares. One thing at a time, and I must fight despair. I must survive. After all, I was my father's son, and he had survived worse than this. Grasping a root, I pulled myself to sit on the fallen tree. Then for the first time I saw my crutch. It was broken.
Deliberately it had been placed against the log, and then stepped on and snapped. I stared at it and then looked carefully around. As always in the forest there was debris, fallen branches, slabs of bark hanging down from fallen trees, leaves and brush. I must make a new crutch, and I must make it now, or I could not move. First, a fire.
Carefully I took some shredded bark, a few broken twigs from the lower trunks of nearby trees, and some leaves from a dead branch and put together the makings of a small fire. With flint and steel I struck a spark, yet on this morning my hands were clumsy and I must have tried a dozen times before a spark landed in the leaves and shredded bark. It caught, smoked a little, and went out. Again I tried, and still again. Finally, when I was tiring from my efforts, a flame mounted and I added fuel.
Hitching myself along the tree I then rolled over and, dragging my injured leg, crawled to the stream, where I dipped up water. Inching along, I crawled back to my fire, rerigged the forked sticks and bar from which I had suspended my bark dish, and shaved chicory from the dried root into the dish.
When I had finished I was exhausted. My injury, the scarcity of food, and my exhausted condition had left me with little strength. Hitching myself into a sitting position against the fallen tree I rested, staring at my fire. From time to time I added sticks to the blaze.
The loss of the map, if such it could be called, was no great problem. From boyhood we had traveled after only a glance or two at a hastily drawn sketch in the earth or wet sand to indicate streams, paths, and mountains. Every detail of the map was in my mind and I knew where I must go and what I must do. If I got out of this.
The worst of it was that I would miss Keokotah. What would he do when I did not appear? Shrug, no doubt, and go on about his business. Traveling in wild country is never easy and many accidents can befall one. He knew that better than I.
Yet I had come to like him. We were still wary of one another, and I particularly, for the thinking of an Indian is not like that of a white man. We grow from different roots, different beliefs, and different customs. But he was a strong, courageous man and a good companion.
One is strongest when one is alone. Whenever there is a companion there is a certain reliance placed upon him, one's attention is shared, one leaves part of the alertness to him. This is a danger. Yet traveling alone is also ever dangerous, and even the most careful man can have an accident, as I had proved.
When the chicory was hot, I sipped it slowly. My stomach was hollow with hunger, but the hot drink helped, and I felt better. Adding fuel to keep some coals alive I used a tree limb to pull myself erect. First, a crutch.
Yet all the broken limbs I could see were twisted or rotted, and nothing on nearby trees was such as I needed. Using a shorter stick as a cane I hitched along to check my snares.
Nothing in the first, nor in the second. For a time then, I rested. I lay on my back on the grass staring up at the sky through the leaves. I must not get too far from shelter, for the sky looked more than ever as if there would be rain. Yet tired as I was it was not in me to lie still when there was so much to be done. I drank from the stream and then using whatever handholds I could reach on deadfalls and trees, I struggled erect. My leg was stiff because of the splints, and walking with a cane was almost impossible.
Again I studied the ground, the nearby trees, everywhere, to find a branch suitable for a crutch. Then I found one.
The branch was long and straight and still a living branch, for which I was grateful. Green wood is much easier to cut than that which is dead and seasoned. With my knife I cut a notch near the tree trunk and then cut it deeper, working to both sides. Then I broke off the branch and cut loose what remained. Then I found a bent branch that I cut from the tree to make the top of my crutch. Now I must return for the rawhide string I had used in tying the piece to the top of my former crutch.
It needed an hour for me to return the few hundred yards to my camp, and another few minutes to fashion my crutch. This was my third and by far the best. The first had been merely a branch found by chance, the second somewhat better. If I remained crippled longer I might become quite skillful. God save me!
Returning I found a bed of saxifrage lettuce, and picked as many leaves as I could find, chewing on some of them as I made my way to camp.
My coals were still warm and I nourished them back to life, ate some more of the leaves, and rested. I was exhausted and my leg hurt. The saxifrage, while it gave me something to chew and was said to be nourishing, did not satisfy.
Crawling into the cave, dragging my leg behind me, I recovered my bow and arrows, leaving the guns where they lay. If I could not stalk a deer, I could at least wait where one might come en route to water. The chance was slight, yet I must have meat and it was better than lying here where nothing would come.
Nearby was a meadow, and deer must cross it going to the stream. The grass was tall, yet there were places where it had been flattened by wind or rolling animals.
Using my new crutch I hobbled out to a large old tree and sat down to wait. I judged my distance carefully and sighted several times at openings from which deer might come. Then I settled down to wait.
The sun was still high and I dozed, waiting. I could expect no deer until after sundown, although there was always a possibility. At that time they would be feeding down toward water. They would drink, browse a little, and feed back to where they wished to bed down.
Once, lying still and resting, I thought I heard a faint whispering of leaves as of something moving among them, but when I sat up cautiously and looked around I saw nothing. Nonetheless, I was disturbed. I slipped off the thong that held my knife in place.
I was hungry. More than that, I was starving. I had eaten too little in the days before breaking my leg, and even less since.
Just before me was a faint game trail down which deer and possibly other animals had come to drink. It was upon this I placed my hope. Sitting up, I pulled myself back against the trunk of a good-sized tree, a position from which I could see anything emerging from the woods. I placed my quiver at hand and drew one arrow out for my bow. Another I placed close by in the event I missed or one was not good enough.
From the position I was in, using the longbow was difficult, but it was my only chance. I waited, dozing a little as the time was still early. Suddenly I was wide awake.
Something had moved near me!
Carefully, I looked all around. I saw nothing, heard nothing.
Something moved close by me. My eyes turned and looked directly into the yellow eyes of a giant cat.
A panther!
It was crouched, watching me. It was on my right, not thirty feet away, and there was no doubt as to its intentions. Had it been on my left loosing an arrow would have been easy, but I had to turn to my right, hitching my injured leg around, turning my whole body to face it. I wouldn't have a chance.
The cat's tail was slowly twitching. I saw the shoulder muscles bunch. I turned sharply, feeling a stab of anguish in my leg, and I loosed an arrow just as the panther leaped. Then I fell.
Turning sharply as I had I lost the support of the tree. I fell headlong to the ground, losing hold on my bow. Yet my fall was fortunate, for the panther overleaped. Spinning swiftly, it was at me with a snarl of fury.
As I fell I had drawn my knife and as the beast leaped at me I drove sharply up with the knife. It cut into the cat's soft belly to the hilt.
Claws tore at me, jaws reached for my head. I stabbed again and then again. I knew the claws were tearing me. The teeth ripped my scalp, I felt the cat's hot breath and I swung my left fist into its ribs.
The cat sprang away, gasping. I could see blood along a shoulder where my arrow had cut the skin. The cat was bleeding, but maddened by pain and bloodlust it wanted only to kill.
