Again Fortune was unkind. He wandered farther than usual in his determination not to go back empty-handed. He knew but too well that in Geoffrey’s desperate state there was nothing his experience could do that Absalom’s ignorance could not do as well. In fact there was nothing to be done. The patient lay in a kind of stupor. Only the gentle nursing-mother Nature could help him now. He came upon a circular patch of prairie in the heart of the forest, and surprised a lean and lonely buffalo, the first he had seen for more than a month. The last had been shot by Geoffrey some days before the guide’s departure on his useless journey. The animal was scratching in the snow, trying to get at the scanty herbage under that frozen surface, when Lucius came upon it. His footsteps, noiseless in his moccasins, did not startle the quarry. He stole within easy range, and fired. The first shot hit the animal in the shoulder; then came a desperate chase. The buffalo ran, but feebly. Lucius fired his second barrel, this time at still closer quarters, and the brute, gaunt and famished like himself, rolled head downwards on the snow. He took out his hunting-knife, cut out the tongue and choicer morsels, as much as he could carry, and then with infinite labour buried his prey in the snow, meaning to return next morning with Absalom to fetch the remainder; provided always that the snow kept his secret, and wolves or wolverines did not devour his prize in the interval. He was able to carry away with him food that would serve for more than a week. No matter how hard or skinny the flesh might be,—it was flesh. Darkness had closed round him when these labours were finished, but stars shone faintly above the pine-tops: and he carried a pocket-lantern which he could light on emergency. Where was he? That was the first question to be settled. He found some difficulty in recalling the track he had taken. Great Heaven! if he had strayed too far afield, and should find return impossible! Geoffrey yonder dying, without his brotherly arm to support the drooping head, his loving hand to wipe the brow on which the death-damps gathered! The very thought made him desperate. He looked up at the stars, his only guides, shouldered his burden, and walked rapidly in that direction which he supposed the right one. During their enforced idleness, Geoffrey and Lucius had made themselves tolerably familiar with the aspect of the forest within a radius of ten miles or so from their hut. They knew the course of the river, and its tributary streams. They had even cut rude avenues through the pine-wood, in their quest of fuel, cutting down trees in a straight line at a dozen yards apart, leaving six feet or so of the trunk standing, like a rude pillar; so that within half a mile of their encampment there were on every side certain roughly-marked approaches.