He fastened them to stakes and posted them on two sides of the point of
danger.
It was then past eleven and too late for the long journey to Lost River
camp. He decided to go to Henyon's on the Middle Branch and get the
trapper to come and keep watch while he took Sinth and the children to
Benson Falls.
On his way out of the slash he killed a deer, and dressed and hung him
on a tree. Then he set out for the trail to Henyon's.
He had walked for an hour or so when his pace began to slacken.
"T-y-ty!" he whispered, stopping suddenly. "S. Strong, what's the
m-matter? Yer all of a-tremble."
Strong felt sick and weary, and took off his pack and sat down to rest
on a bed of leaves. Then he discovered that the handkerchief upon his
arm was dripping wet. Again he stopped the blood by cording.
He lay back on the ground suffering with faintness and acute pain. Soon
obeying the instinct of man and beast, which prompts one to hide his
weakness and even his death-throes, he crept behind the top of a fallen
tree.
His heart had been overstrained of late by worry and heavy toil. Now for
the first time he could feel it laboring a little as if it missed the
blood which had been dripping slowly but steadily from his arm. At last
a day was come that had no pleasure in it--a day when the keepers of the
house had begun to tremble.
Soon the warm sunlight fell through forest branches on the great body
of Strong, who had lost command of himself and become the prisoner of
sleep.
In the memorandum-book there is an entry without date in a script of
unusual size. Those large letters were made slowly and with a trembling
hand. It was probably written while he sat there in the lonely, autumn
woods before giving up to his weakness. This is the entry:
_"Theys days when I dont blieve God is over per-ticklar with a man bout
swearin."_