* * * * *
At the end of his first day's struggle Roscoe built himself a camp in a bit
of scrub timber, which was not much more than brush. If he had been an
older hand he would have observed that this bit of timber, and every tree
and bush that he had passed since noon, was stripped and dead on the side
that faced the north. It was a sign of the Great Barrens, and of the fierce
storms that swept over them, destroying even the life of the trees. He
cooked and ate his last food the following day, and went on. The small
timber turned to scrub, and the scrub, in time, to vast snow wastes over
which the storm swept mercilessly. All this day he looked for game, for a
flutter of bird life; he chewed bark, and in the afternoon got a mouthful
of Fox-bite, which made his throat swell until he could scarcely breathe.
At night he made tea, but had nothing to eat. His hunger was acute and
painful. It was torture the next day--the third--for the process of
starvation is a rapid one in this country where only the fittest survive on
four meals a day. He camped, built a small bush fire at night, and slept.
He almost failed to rouse himself on the morning that followed, and when he
staggered to his feet and felt the cutting sting of the storm still in his
face, and heard the swishing wail of it over the Barren, he knew that at
last the moment had come when he was standing face to face with the
Almighty.
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