Then he rose again, folded the blanket, and fastened it on his
shoulders. He looked at the snowshoes, but decided that his left
ankle, despite its great improvement, would not stand the strain.
He must break his way through the snow, which was a full three
feet in depth. Fortunately the crust had softened somewhat in
the last two or three days, and he did not have a covering of ice
to meet.
He pushed his way for the first time from the lair under the
cliff, his rifle held in his ready hands, in order that he might
miss no chance at game. To an ordinary observer there would have
been no such chance at all. It was merely a grim white
wilderness that might have been without anything living from the
beginning. But Henry, the forest runner, knew better. Somewhere
in the snow were lairs much like the one that he had left, and in
these lairs were wild animals. To any such wild animal, whether
panther or bear, the hunter would now have been a fearsome
object, with his hollow cheeks, his sunken fiery eyes, and his
thin lips opening now and then, and disclosing the two rows of
strong white teeth.
Henry advanced about a rod, and then he stopped, breathing hard,
because it was desperate work for one in his condition to break
his way through snow so deep.
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