The chances against any such haphazard casting of a javelin proving successful were simply incalculable; but Power took this piece of good fortune as further proof that he was being befriended by Providence. Leaving the armadillo where it had fallen, he searched the crevices in which it was about to seek refuge, and obtained some handfuls of dry moss. Then he gathered a bundle of the driest sticks he could find, and, by using a flint and steel, which, in his case, had long ago superseded all other means of lighting a fire, was soon enjoying a meal the like to which no chef in Paris could have prepared that night. True, there were but one course and one sauce; but the joint was eatable, with something of a pork flavor, and the sauce was ravenous hunger. Only the other day he told the most famous of contemporary head waiters that roast armadillo was vastly superior to sucking pig, at which the eminent one smiled, realizing that his patron was no gourmet. Covering the remains of the feast with the creature's own armor, which, as an extra precaution against vultures, he weighted down with stones, Power arranged a bed of moss under an overhanging rock, and lay down to sleep. A wild storm of wind and rain raged during the night; but he was merely awaked for a minute or two by the unusual clamor, and slept soundly again, despite the fury of the elements. At dawn he was astir, and, after eating a few mouthfuls, tied the rest of the small joints to the spear by their own sinews, and began his march again. As the armadillo supplied the only food he secured, or could have secured, during six days of a most arduous and nerve-racking advance through a country which offered every sort of obstacle to the explorer, it is not to be wondered at if Power came to believe that he would yet emerge in safety from the perils confronting him. But his rate of movement was exasperatingly slow. On one day of the six he only succeeded in crossing one particularly troublesome ravine. On another, after skirting a mountain slope which positively bristled with dangers, he found himself on a receding angle, and was compelled to retrace his steps; although, a dozen times already, he had been called on to exercise every ounce of strength, every shred of resolution, in order to cross appallingly difficult places which he must now tackle again.