then more voyageurs with their canoes; then more Indians and wigwams It
occurred to Ford that the nuns might have been painted from life, the
voyageurs and Indians from imagination He turned to the two framed
drawings on the chimney-piece Both represented winter scenes. In the one a
sturdy voyageur was conveying his wife and small personal belongings
across the frozen snow on a sled drawn by a team of dogs. In the other a
woman, apparently the same woman as in the preceding sketch, had fallen in
the midst of a blinding storm, while a tall man of European
aspect--decidedly not the voyageur--was standing beside her with a baby in
his arms. These were clearly fancy pictures, and, so it seemed to Ford,
the work of one who was trying to recapture some almost forgotten memory.
In any case he was too deeply engrossed by his own situation to dwell on
them further.

He wheeled round again toward the centre of the room, impatiently casting
about him for something to eat. The tin box, from which he had devoured
all the biscuits, lay empty on the floor, but he picked it up and ate
hungrily the few crumbs sticking in its corners. He ransacked the small
dark room in the hope of finding more, but vainly. As far as he could see,
the cabin had never been used for the purpose it was meant to serve, nor
ever occupied for more than a few hours at a time. It had probably been
built in a caprice that had passed with its completion. He guessed
something from the fact that there was no visible attempt to sketch the
scene before the door, though the site had evidently been chosen for its
beauty.

He had nothing by which to measure time, but he knew that precious hours
which he might have utilized for escape were passing. He began to chafe at
the delay. With the impulse of youth to be active, he longed to be out,
where he could at least use his feet. His clothes had dried upon him; in