But
its fibers were tough. It was composed of stringy filaments
saturated with water, like the berries, and devoid of nourishment.
He threw off his pack and went into the rush-grass on hands and
knees, crunching and munching, like some bovine creature.
He was very weary and often wished to rest - to lie down and sleep;
but he was continually driven on - not so much by his desire to
gain the land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched
little ponds for frogs and dug up the earth with his nails for
worms, though he knew in spite that neither frogs nor worms existed
so far north.
He looked into every pool of water vainly, until, as the long
twilight came on, he discovered a solitary fish, the size of a
minnow, in such a pool. He plunged his arm in up to the shoulder,
but it eluded him. He reached for it with both hands and stirred
up the milky mud at the bottom. In his excitement he fell in,
wetting himself to the waist. Then the water was too muddy to
admit of his seeing the fish, and he was compelled to wait until
the sediment had settled.
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