To and fro bent the sapling under his weight, threatening to snap asunder each moment and cast him into the jaws of the enraged beast.

The hours that followed were of such keen, mortal terror that he vaguely wondered that he did not lose his reason through fright.

With fascinated eyes he watched the antics of the thoroughly enraged animal.  The bear made many efforts to climb the tree in pursuit of his prey, but the swaying sapling was too slender to give him a hold, and its bark too slippery with its coating of ice to insert the claws, which had been clipped quite close, rendering them almost powerless in taking a firm grasp.

The night had closed in intensely cold, and Halloran could feel his cramped limbs and hands slowly stiffening, but he dared not lose his grip.

The moon rose higher and higher in the night sky, shedding a white, clear, bright light over the snow-clad earth.

He knew that the animal was watching his every movement closely, as each time he shifted his position brought a savage growl from the bear, which was circling round and round the tree, eying him intently.

For long hours this lasted, until the half frozen man, hanging on for dear life to the upper branches of the sapling, thought he should go mad.

With the coming of daylight the bear changed his tactics, lying down directly under the tree, still eying his prey with his small, beady, expectant eyes, as though measuring the time that his victim could hold out.

The daylight grew stronger; slowly in the eastern horizon the red sun rose, gilding the white, glistening snow with its rosy light.

Hour by hour it climbed the blue azure height, crossed the zenith, and then slowly sank behind the western hills, heralding the oncoming of another night.

Still the brute, with almost incredible cunning, sat in the same position under the tree, watching Halloran’s every move.

“God rescue me!” he cried, lifting his white face to the Heaven he had so offended.

“If I pass another night here I shall go mad—­mad!”

He was famished with hunger, numb with cold, and his mouth and throat were dry with unconquerable thirst.

In those hours of suffering he thought of Lester Armstrong, and of the awful fate he had doomed him to.  He realized by his own experience of a few hours what he must have endured, and a bitter groan of remorse broke from his clammy lips.

“This is Heaven’s punishment,” he cried.  “Oh, Lester Armstrong.  God has surely avenged you!  If I could but atone; if it were to be done over again, I would have no hand in the atrocious crime that has dyed my hands just as surely as though I had plunged a knife into your heart!”

In his haste on leaving the cabin he had not taken time to secure his revolver; he had no weapon; he was doomed to meet the same fate that he had meted out to Lester Armstrong—­starve to death slowly, hour by hour—­knowing that when he was too weak to hold longer to the branch he would fall.