It would have pleased him better to carry the latter, but the bushman brings home a deer with its fore-legs drawn over his shoulders and grasped in front of him.

Alton jerked it into the most convenient position, and then stopped a moment, panting, and glanced about him.
His burden was not especially heavy, but he was weary and his camp was far away, while, though a half-moon was now growing into brilliancy above the firs, it was dark below.
"I figure I'd not have to worry quite so much about my supper at Carnaby," he said, and laughed a little as he floundered stiffly up the hill.
It was at least an hour later, and he was limping on, encouraging himself with the expectation of resting in warm repletion beside the snapping fire, when he entered a denser growth of timber.

Alton had like most of his kind been taught by necessity to hold the weaknesses of his body in subjection, but he was a man with the instincts of his fellows, and the thought of the steaming kettle, smell of roasting meat, glare of flickering light, and snug blankets appealed to him, and just then he would not have bartered the blackened can of smoke-tasted tea for all the plate and glass of Carnaby.

His step grew a little steadier, and the sound of the river louder, until he stopped suddenly near a prostrate fir.

There was a gap in the dusky vault above him through which the moon shone down and called up a sparkle from the thin scattering of snow.