With his mind more or less relieved on this point, Jamie suddenly realized that he was hungry.  It was nearing midday.  He had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and he had the normal appetite of a healthy boy.  The snow had perceptibly increased in depth since his escape from the lean-to, and walking was correspondingly hard.  He was so hungry and so weary that at length he could scarcely force one foot ahead of the other.

The wind was rising, and in crossing an open frozen marsh the snow drifted before the gale in clouds so dense as to be suffocating.  The storm was attaining the proportions of a blizzard, and when Jamie again reached the shelter of the forest beyond the marsh he found it necessary to stop to rest and regain his breath.

“’Twill never do to try to cross another mesh,” he decided.  “I’m like to be overcome with un and perish before I finds my way out of un to the timber.  I’ll stick to the woods, and if I can’t stick to un I’ll have to bide where I is till the snow stops.  I wonders now if Doctor Joe and David is out lookin’ for me.  I’m not thinkin’ they’d bide in the tent with me lost out here and they not knowin’ where I is.”

When he was rested a little he arose, took his direction with the compass, and floundered on through the snow.

“They’s sure out somewhere lookin’ for me,” he thought, “but ’tis snowin’ so hard they never will find me!  I’ll have to keep goin’ till I finds camp.  ‘Tis strange now I’m not comin’ to the brook, ’tis wonderful strange.  I’m thinkin’ though I were crossin’ two meshes with the men in the night, and I’ve only been crossin’ one goin’ back to-day.  I’m fearin’ I’ll never be able to cross un though, when I comes to the next un.”

Presently, as Jamie had thought would be the case, he came to another marsh.  It satisfied him that he was going in the right direction, but at the same time it lay out before him as a well-nigh impassable barrier.  The wind was driving the snow across it in swirling dense clouds, and he stood for a little in the shelter of the trees and viewed it with heavy heart.

“’Tis a bigger mesh than the other,” he commented to himself, “but I’ll have to try to cross un.  I can’t bide here.  I’ll freeze to death with no shelter and I has no axe for makin’ a shelter.  I’m not knowin’ what to do.”

For a little while he hesitated, then he plunged out upon the edge of the marsh.  He was nearly swept from his feet, and to recover his breath he was forced to retreat again to the woods.  Three times he tried to face the storm-swept marsh, but each time was sent staggering back to shelter.  It was a task beyond the strength and endurance of so young a lad, and utterly exhausted and bitterly disappointed, he sat down upon the trunk of a fallen tree to rest.

“I never can make un whilst the nasty weather lasts,” he acknowledged.  “I’m fair scrammed and I’ll have to wait for the wind to ease before I tries un again.”