With the aid of his
broad snow-shoes he drew himself out, until he stood knee-deep in the
surface.
He lifted his pack. As he swung it before him, one arm thrust through
a strap, he gave a startled cry. Half of one side of the pack was
eaten away! He thrust his hands through the breach, and a moan of
despair sobbed on his lips when he found that his food was gone. A
thin trickle of flour ran through his fingers upon the snow. He pulled
out a gnawed pound of bacon, a little tea--and that was all.
Frantically he ripped the rent wider in his search, and when he stood
up, his wild face staring into the chaos about him, he held only the
bit of bacon in his hand. In it were the imprints of tiny teeth--sharp
little razor-edged teeth that told him what had happened. While he had
slept a mink had robbed him of his food!
With one of his shoes he began digging furiously in the snow. He tore
his balsam bed to pieces. Somewhere--somewhere not very far away--the
little animal must have cached its theft. He dug down until he came to
the frozen earth. For an hour he worked and found nothing.
Then he stopped. Over a small fire he melted snow for tea and broiled
a slice of the bacon, which he ate with the few biscuit crumbs he
found in the pack. Every particle of flour that he could find he
scraped up with his knife and put into one of the deep pockets of his
caribou coat.
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