He hunted the grouse at first, but that gave small return for
ammunition expended, although the flesh of the blue and willow grouse
is pleasant fare. When the big storm abated he looked out one clear
dawn and saw a buck deer standing in the open. At a distance of sixty
yards he shot the animal, not because he hankered to kill, but because
he needed meat. So under the cabin eaves he had quarters of venison,
and he knew that he could go abroad on that snowy slope and stalk a
deer with ease. There was a soothing pleasantness about a great blaze
crackling in the stone fireplace. And he had Doris Cleveland's books.
Yes, Hollister reiterated to himself, it was better than a bedroom off
the blank corridor of a second-rate hotel and the crowded streets that
were more merciless to a stricken man than these silent places.
Eventually he would have to go back. But for the present,--well, he
occupied himself wholly with the present, and he did not permit
himself to look far beyond.
From the deerskin he cut a quantity of fine strips and bent into oval
shape two tough sticks of vine maple.
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