Two tired people went down a stone placer to a small river. "Their faces expressed patient humility - a sign of long hardships," and heavy bales tied by straps pulled their shoulders. The first man had already crossed the river when the second stumbled on a slippery boulder and twisted his leg. He called out to his companion Bill, but he did not even look back. Soon, Bill disappeared behind a low hill, and the man was left alone.
These two, having washed a heavy bag of golden sand, headed for Lake Titcinnichili, which translated from the local language meant “Country of Big Sticks”. A stream flowed out of the lake and flowed into the river Diz. There satellites had a cache of food and ammunition. With him, a man carried an unloaded gun, knife, a pair of blankets and a bag of gold.
Wincing in pain, he hurriedly climbed the hill, but found no sign of Bill. He went downstairs and wandered across the swampy plain to the Land of Big Sticks, collecting pieces of dry moss for a bonfire and tasteless, watery marsh berries along the way. In the evening, he laid out a fire and divided 67 matches into three parts, which he scattered according to his rags. His shoes completely fell apart, and his leg was swollen. I had to cut one blanket into strips and wrap their feet in blood that had been knocked down in blood.
A man walked along this plain for several days. Around was teeming with game, but he didn’t have any cartridges, and he ate berries, plant roots and small gudgeon fish, which he caught and eaten raw. Three days later, clouds covered the sky, it began to snow. The man could no longer navigate the sun and got lost. He was very weak, and the pangs of hunger that tormented him for several days were dulled. Now he ate because he had to eat. Game became more and more around. Soon, wolves appeared.
Man stubbornly wandered in the dense fog that enveloped the plain, "unconsciously, like an automaton." Often he lost consciousness, "strange thoughts and ridiculous ideas sharpened his brain like worms." The torment of hunger brought to the person, which now became even sharper. Once, having regained consciousness, he saw a bear in front of him. The man wanted to kill him with a knife, but he got scared. He was not afraid of death, but did not want to be eaten. Soon he came upon bones left over from wolf prey. They supported his life a little.
“The terrible days of rain and snow have come.” He no longer fought "how people fight" and did not suffer, but "life itself in him did not want to die and drove him forward." His brain was filled with "strange visions, rainbow dreams." He got rid of his gold a long time ago - he hid half of it, poured the rest onto the ground. The tightly packed pouch was too heavy for him.
Once he woke up on the banks of a river. The sun warmed him, and before his eyes stretched the "shining sea" and the ship on its surface. He decided that this was another vision, but suddenly he heard behind his back “some kind of sniffling - either a sigh or a cough”. Turning, the man saw a wolf. The animal was hurt. Then the man realized that the ship is not a mirage. Having lost his way, he went not to the "Land of Great Sticks", but to the Arctic Ocean.
Gathering the remaining forces, he moved towards the ocean, and the wolf followed. The predator wanted to eat a man, but he did not have the strength to kill him. Now the man was conscious, but his strength quickly left him, and the wolf was getting closer and closer. Along the way, he noticed gnawed human bones - the remains of Bill, among which lay a bag of gold. The man did not take it.
He moved more slowly, and soon could only crawl. The wolf did not lag behind, and the man had to kill him. He lost the knife, and strangled the animal, leaning on it with his whole body. Drinking wolf blood, he fell asleep.
Members of a scientific expedition traveling on a Bedford whaling ship saw a strange creature on the shore that turned out to be a mortally exhausted man. They picked him up, and a month later he "was already sitting at the table <...> in the wardroom of the ship." For a while, the man was obsessed with food and stuffed his cabin with it, but it was "before Bedford anchored in the harbor of San Francisco."
