He seized a long stick and thrust it savagely inside. The bear, awakened from the winter sleep which he had begun luxuriously not long ago, growled fiercely and rushed out. Then Henry snatched up his rifle and shot him. The bear had lost much of his fat, but he was a perfect treasure house of supplies, nevertheless, and steaks from his body were soon broiling over the coals. Henry, remembering how much food he needed in such intense cold, and, while he was undergoing physical exertions so great, ate heavily. As much more as he could conveniently carry he added to his pack, knowing that he could freeze it at night, and that it would keep indefinitely. He would have liked the bearskin too, but he did not care to add so much to his burden, and so he left it reluctantly. He was a new man now, made over completely. The wilderness, so far from being desolate and hostile, took on its old comfortable aspects. It was a provider of food and shelter to one who knew how to find them, and certainly none knew better than he. The wants of the body being satisfied, he began to plan anew for the junction with his comrades. The great cold would not last much longer. A temperature twenty or thirty degrees below zero never endured more than a few days. Like as not, it would break up in a warm rain, to be followed by moderate weather, and then he could hunt the trail of the four in comfort. His pack was much heavier when he started and the icy coating of the earth was still slippery, but he made excellent progress, and he was able to fix in his mind the direction in which the marks on the trees had pointed. He knew that he must turn back somewhat toward the north in order to reach that line, and such a change in his course would increase the danger from the Indians, but he did not hesitate. He made the angle at once, and then he began to observe the trees with all the patience and minuteness of which a forest runner in such a crisis was capable. It was almost dusk when he found the sign, four slashes of a tomahawk, eye-high on the stalwart trunk of an oak, and a hundred yards farther on a similar sign. He traced them fully a mile, and then as the night shut down, dark and impenetrable, he was compelled to stop. He dared another fire, the cold was so intense, and began his journey again the next morning over the ice. The rise in the temperature that he had expected did not occur, nor were there any signs of a change. Evidently the great cold had come to stay much longer than usual, and, while it hindered his own journey, it also hindered possible pursuit by the Indians, of whom he saw no traces anywhere until the third day after he had killed the bear. Then he observed a great smoke in the south, and he approached near enough to discover that it was an Indian village, probably Shawnees. It seemed to be snowed up for the winter, holed up like a bear, and, anticipating no danger from it, he continued his leisurely hunt eastward.