What little wocus she was able to find she made into bread for Ben; yet it was never enough to satisfy his body’s craving.  The only meat she had herself was the vapid flesh that had been previously boiled for Ben’s broth; and now only a few pieces of the jerked meat remained.  She herself tried to live on such plants as the wilderness yielded, and she soon began to notice the tragic loss of her own strength.  Her eyes were hollow, preternaturally large; she experienced a strange, floating sensation, as if spirit and flesh were disassociated.

Still Ben lingered in his mysterious stupor, unaware of what went on about him; but his fever was almost gone by now, and the first beginnings of strength returned to his thews.  His mind had begun to grope vaguely for the key that would open the doors of his memory and remind him again of some great, half-forgotten task that still confronted him, some duty unperformed.  Yet he could not quite seize it.  The girl who worked about his cot was without his bourne of knowledge; her voice reached him as if from an infinite distance, and her words penetrated only to the outer edges of his consciousness.  It was not strictly, however, a return of his amnesia.  It was simply an outgrowth of delirium caused by his sickness and injuries, to be wholly dispelled as soon as he was wholly well.

But now the real hour of crisis was at hand,—­not from his illness, but from the depletion of their food supplies.  Beatrice had spent a hard afternoon in the forest in search of roots and berries, and as she crept homeward, exhausted and almost empty-handed, the full, tragic truth was suddenly laid bare.  Her own strength had waned.  Without the miracle of a fresh food supply she could hardly keep on her feet another day.  Plainly and simply, the wolf was at the door.  His cruel fangs menaced not only her, but this stalwart man for whose life she had fought so hard.

The fear of the obliterating darkness known to all the woods people pressed close upon her and appalled her.  She loved life simply and primitively; and it was an unspeakable thing to lose at the end of such a battle.  Out so far, surrounded by such endless, desolate wastes of gloomy forest, the Shadow was cold, inhospitable; and she was afraid to face it alone.  If Ben would only waken and sustain her drooping spirit with his own!  She was lonely and afraid, in the shadow of the inert spruce, under the gray sky.

She could hardly summon strength for the evening’s work of cutting fuel.  The blade would not drive with its old force into the wood.  The blaze itself burned dully; and she could not make it leap and crackle with its old cheer.  And further misfortune was in store for her when she crept into the cave to prepare Ben’s supper.

A pack rat—­one of those detested rodents known so well to all northern peoples—­had carried off in her absence two of the three remaining sticks of jerked caribou.  For a moment she gazed in unbelieving and speechless horror, then made a frenzied search in the darkened corners of the cabin.