The man pulled himself together and went on, afraid now in a new way. There were wolves. Now and again the wolves, in packs of two and three, crossed his path. They stayed clear of the man, for it was easier to hunt the caribou.
In the late afternoon he came upon the bones of a caribou calf. He sat on the moss and gathered the bones into a heap, and then he chewed them with his bare teeth, trying to get a mouthful of the raw meat. Then he pounded the bones between rocks, beating them into a pulp and swallowed it. In his haste he almost broke some of his fingers, yet he did not mind the hurt.
Then came frightful days of snow and rain. The will to live carried him on. It was the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove him on. By this time he had become numb to pain. Half alive, he walked, he stumbled, he crawled until he came to a river. His dull senses told him it was not the same river where he and Bill had left their canoe. He followed the course of the river downstream. He didn’t know where he was—it didn’t matter much anyway. But he still had the will to live, and he pushed on.
He awoke one morning, lying on his back on a rocky ledge. In a painful effort, he rolled over on his side. Below him he could see that the river flowed out to the sea. He was not excited about that fact, and then he saw something that he was sure was a trick of the mind. Maybe, after all, it was a dream—a ship lying at anchor. He closed his eyes and then opened them. The ship was still there. The man could not believe it.
Then the man heard a noise behind him—a half-choking gasp or cough. He could see nothing near at hand. Again came the strange noises, and outlined against the rocks twenty feet away was the gray head of a wolf. The animal had bloodshot eyes. It seemed sick. It was no longer able to hunt with the packs. It even feared its own kind, but now it stalked the man, waiting for him to die.
The man looked again toward the sea. He decided the ship was real. It was at least five miles away, but the man had the will to live. He no longer felt the hunger. His last blanket was gone, and he had lost the rifle.
Though extremely weak, he was calm. He ripped off his pants legs to the knees and bound them to his feet. His movements were slow, but he was determined. He still had some matches and the tin pail. He warmed some water and drank it. Now he felt slightly better, and he was able to stand. He walked toward the ship until his weakness overcame him. Then he crawled on all fours like an animal. In the late afternoon he saw an empty moose-hide sack like his. He recognized it and knew it was Bill’s. A hundred yards farther were the bones of a human skeleton. The man did not need to guess. Bill had almost made it!
Finally the man lay quiet in sleep. Two or three times during the night the sick wolf had come close to the man, bared its teeth, and sniffed in hunger, but the man flung his arms out and scared the wolf away.
The first rays of daylight brought the man to life. He was no longer able to stand, so he began to crawl toward the ship. He could see it now—lying beyond the breakers. His knees and arms were raw and bleeding, but the man kept moving, a foot at a time, until he reached the beach, where he lay quietly—unable to move a foot farther. He dreamed of food, clean clothing, and warm sunshine, and then he began to crawl again.
The ship was the Bedford, once a whaling vessel. On board were the members of a scientific expedition. Some of the members saw a strange object crawling along the beach toward the water. They were unable to identify the object, and being scientific men, they climbed into a ship’s boat and went ashore to see. And they saw something that was hardly alive and could hardly be called a human being. It moved along the ground like a worm and made headway at perhaps twenty feet an hour.
The man was brought aboard the Bedford, given food, and cared for by a doctor.
In a few days he was able to sit up in his bunk. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he told how he had almost lost his life in the wilds. Then he began to talk strangely of his family in sunny southern California, and of a home among the orange trees and the flowers.
一个男人掉进小溪，扭伤了脚踝。
他叫唤他的朋友：“喂，等我一下，比尔，我扭伤了脚。”
无人应答，比尔已经消失在潮湿的雾气里。尽管还只是8月份，在午后惨淡的阳光下，加拿大的荒原显得无比的孤寂和荒凉。阴沉的天空笼罩着大地。低矮的山峦，没有树木，漫山荒芜，男人周身顿时弥漫着无边的恐惧。
“比尔！”他又叫道，“比尔！”依然没人应答。
男人挣扎着站了起来，浑身颤抖。他竭力克制住内心的恐惧，找到落入水里的枪，慢慢地挪动脚步。子弹已经用完，枪也没什么用了，不过他还是没有扔掉。
为了减轻右脚踝的压力，他把背包挪到了左肩，然后匆匆爬上了一座小山丘，他从那儿看到了一个山谷，空旷却沉闷。
山谷的底部松软而潮湿。他接着赶路，想沿着踪迹追上同伴。
虽然孤身一人，但他并没有迷路，他知道，再走远点，就能找到路了。沿着那条路到了河边，就可以找到被石头压着的木船。掀开木船，下面有一个地窖，里面有弹药、钓竿、绳索，还有一张小网。那里还有为数不多的面粉、熏肉和蚕豆——大部分已被他们在来北方寻金的路上吃掉了。
比尔一定会在那里等他！他想，他们可以沿河道划船，到达那个温暖而又有足够食物的寓所——哈得孙海湾公司的一个驻扎点。
他边想边缓慢前行，接着又想，可能比尔已经把他抛弃了。整整两天，男人颗粒未进，快要饿死了，这使他更加恐惧。途中，他时不时地停住脚步，吃些野果子，但这些大多是苦味的籽粒。饥饿感无时无刻不在增强。