When, after an hour had passed, I awoke, the boys made me drink more tea and eat another piece of bread. Then Duncan took his rifle, and remarking, "The 's deer signs right handy, an' a bit o' deer's meat might do you good, sir," strode off into the bush. Late in the afternoon he returned without having been rewarded in his hunt, and took a seat with Gilbert near my feet as I reclined on the boughs. Twilight came and then darkness, and I, lying before the crackling flames, wondered, as they burned ever brighter, whether Donald and Allen had yet found Hubbard, and hoped against hope that they had found him alive. Instinctively I felt that I should prepare for the worst, but I cudgelled my brain for specious arguments to make myself believe he had survived, and went on hoping.
My feet had b
