The disappointment was as bitter as though he had
really expected to find the cartridge.
He plodded on for half an hour, when the hallucination arose again.
Again he fought it, and still it persisted, till for very relief he
opened his rifle to unconvince himself. At times his mind wandered
farther afield, and he plodded on, a mere automaton, strange
conceits and whimsicalities gnawing at his brain like worms. But
these excursions out of the real were of brief duration, for ever
the pangs of the hunger-bite called him back. He was jerked back
abruptly once from such an excursion by a sight that caused him
nearly to faint. He reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunken
man to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse. A horse! He
could not believe his eyes. A thick mist was in them, intershot
with sparkling points of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to
clear his vision, and beheld, not a horse, but a great brown bear.
The animal was studying him with bellicose curiosity.
The man had brought his gun halfway to his shoulder before he
realized.
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