Carefully he emerged from the bushes and, to his utter astonishment, saw a small cothold directly across the stream that was now wide as a river. He watched the cothold a long time before he decided that there was no one working inside or nearby. He waded across the river, his bruised feet feeling every rock, and hid again in the bushes until he was sure he heard no human sounds.

The cothold was empty but someone lived here. A herder, perhaps, for there were hides pushed back on the rough sleeping platform made supple by long usage. Food first! He didn’t even wash the tubers he found in a basket by the hearth. Then he saw cold gray grease in the iron skillet, set a-tilt on the hearth. He dipped the raw vegetables into it, relishing the salt in the grease as flavoring. The worst of his hunger momentarily assuaged, he searched for more to eat and a change of clothing. As a younger man he would never have filched so much as a berry or an apple from a neighbor’s yard. His circumstances were as much altered now as the tenets of conduct his father had beaten into him. He had a duty to perform, a wrong to right, and a theory he must confirm or forget.

His stomach churned with the raw, greasy food he had eaten. He had to eat more slowly or lose everything. Vomit was a hard smell to hide. In a tightly covered container that would protect its contents from vermin, he found three quarters of a wheel of cheese. He thought how long such food would sustain him in his escape—but the fewer traces of his passing were noticeable, the better. While the cotholder might not notice the loss of a few tubers and grease in a pan, the disappearance of too much cheese would be a different matter. So he found a thin old knife blade in the back of a drawer and sliced off a section of cheese, enough to provide him a small meal but, he hoped, not enough to be instantly noticed. Almost as if his restraint were being rewarded, he found a dozen rolls of travel rations in another tin box and took two. He would surely find more food if he was not greedy now. He believed in that sort of justice.

He removed the bandage on his forehead, a painful task even when he had soaked his face in the cold stream water. One or two spots bled a little, but as no blood trailed down his face, he left the wound open to the clean mountain air.

He went back to the cothold to look for clothing but found none. He did take one of the older hides. He could not count on finding shelter, and though this was the fifth month, the nights could still be chilly.