His knees had become raw meat like his feet, and though
he padded them with the shirt from his back it was a red track he
left behind him on the moss and stones. Once, glancing back, he
saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and he saw
sharply what his own end might be - unless - unless he could get
the wolf. Then began as grim a tragedy of existence as was ever
played - a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped, two
creatures dragging their dying carcasses across the desolation and
hunting each other's lives.
Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered so much to the
man; but the thought of going to feed the maw of that loathsome and
all but dead thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His mind
had begun to wander again, and to be perplexed by hallucinations,
while his lucid intervals grew rarer and shorter.
He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze close in his ear.
The wolf leaped lamely back, losing its footing and falling in its
weakness. It was ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was he
even afraid.
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