The cold snap broke, and he was able to remain by the bank once more, and the trail died again.  For a week he crouched and watched, and never life stirred along it, not a soul passed in or out.  He had cut down to one biscuit night and morning, and somehow he did not seem to notice it.  Sometimes he marvelled at the way life remained in him.  He never would have thought it possible to endure so much.

When the trail fluttered anew with life it was life with which he could not cope.  A detachment of the North-West police went by, a score of them, with many sleds and dogs; and he cowered down on the bank above, and they were unaware of the menace of death that lurked in the form of a dying man beside the trail.

His frozen thumb gave him a great deal of trouble.  While watching by the bank he got into the habit of taking his mitten off and thrusting the hand inside his shirt so as to rest the thumb in the warmth of his arm-pit.  A mail carrier came over the trail, and Morganson let him pass.  A mail carrier was an important person, and was sure to be missed immediately.

On the first day after his last flour had gone it snowed.  It was always warm when the snow fell, and he sat out the whole eight hours of daylight on the bank, without movement, terribly hungry and terribly patient, for all the world like a monstrous spider waiting for its prey.  But the prey did not come, and he hobbled back to the tent through the darkness, drank quarts of spruce tea and hot water, and went to bed.

The next morning circumstance eased its grip on him.  As he started to come out of the tent he saw a huge bull-moose crossing the swale some four hundred yards away.  Morganson felt a surge and bound of the blood in him, and then went unaccountably weak.  A nausea overpowered him, and he was compelled to sit down a moment to recover.  Then he reached for his rifle and took careful aim.  The first shot was a hit:  he knew it; but the moose turned and broke for the wooded hillside that came down to the swale.  Morganson pumped bullets wildly among the trees and brush at the fleeing animal, until it dawned upon him that he was exhausting the ammunition he needed for the sled-load of life for which he waited.

He stopped shooting, and watched.  He noted the direction of the animal’s flight, and, high up on the hillside in an opening among the trees, saw the trunk of a fallen pine.  Continuing the moose’s flight in his mind he saw that it must pass the trunk.  He resolved on one more shot, and in the empty air above the trunk he aimed and steadied his wavering rifle.  The animal sprang into his field of vision, with lifted fore-legs as it took the leap.  He pulled the trigger.  With the explosion the moose seemed to somersault in the air.  It crashed down to earth in the snow beyond and flurried the snow into dust.

Morganson dashed up the hillside—­at least he started to dash up.  The next he knew he was coming out of a faint and dragging himself to his feet.  He went up more slowly, pausing from time to time to breathe and to steady his reeling senses.  At last he crawled over the trunk.  The moose lay before him.  He sat down heavily upon the carcase and laughed.  He buried his face in his mittened hands and laughed some more.