After thus making his charge as comfortable as circumstances would permit, the lad busied himself for another hour in collecting such a quantity of wood as should insure a good fire until morning. Then, utterly fagged out, he crept into his own bed, and lay down beside his friend.
When he next awoke daylight was already some hours old, the place where the fire had burned was covered with dead ashes, and Bonny lay patiently regarding him with wistful eyes.
"I am so thirsty, Rick," was all he said, though he had lain for hours wide-awake and parched with fever, but heroically determined that his wearied comrade should sleep until he woke of his own accord.
"You poor fellow!" cried Alaric, remorsefully. "Why didn't you wake me long ago?"
"I couldn't bear to," replied Bonny; "but now, if you will please get me a drink."
Only pausing to light a fresh fire, Alaric hastened away to the distant snow-bank, returning as speedily as possible with as much of it as their two tin plates would hold. A handful was given to Bonny to cool his parched tongue while the remainder was melting.
So small a quantity of water could be procured at a time by this slow process that in a very few minutes Alaric found he must go for more snow. As he went he realized how faint he was for want of food. "I wonder how much longer I shall be able to hold out?" he asked himself. "How many more times can I make this trip before my strength is exhausted?" A mental picture of Bonny begging for water, and he too weak to fetch it, caused his eyes to fill with tears, and a black despair again enfolded him.
At this moment the voice of the previous night came again to him: It is never so dark but what there's a light somewhere. "Of course there is," he cried, "and as I found it last night, why shouldn't I to-day?" Even as the lad spoke he caught its first gleam in the form of a rivulet of clear water that rippled merrily down from the snow only a few yards from where he stood. Hastening to this, the lad drank long and deeply.
On lifting his head from the delicious water, he could hardly believe his eyes as they rested on a solitary bird, that he knew to be a ptarmigan, crouching beside a bowlder. Hoping against hope and almost unnerved by anxiety, he flung a stone, and in another minute the bird was his. "Hurrah for breakfast!" he shouted, as he ran back to Bonny with his trophy proudly displayed at arm's-length.