Axel Anderson got the first hint he was in trouble when he pulled his only book of matches out of his hunting-coat pocket and found them wet from melted snow. When he tried to light the first one most of the striking strip tore out of the book and came away in his hand, a crumpled scrap of sodden paper. Now he was sure of his peril.
It was shortly after daylight on Sunday, November 18, , when Anderson left his deer camp in the roadless Rainy Lake country of northern Minnesota on the Canadian border miles above Duluth. There had been no warnings that the next 48 hours would subject him to an ordeal almost beyond human endurance or that he would escape death by a narrow margin.
No thought crossed his mind that it would be six months before he would see his home again, or that he was starting out on two sound feet for the last time in his life. He knows now that he made one serious mistake in preparing for that trip.
The hunting party struck out for an unfamiliar section northeast of camp where one of them had seen deer beds and sign the day before. It had snowed in the night, a wet fall that lay heavy on brush and trees, and the sky was still heavily overcast.
The going was hard. But Anderson and Sonny Sonnenberg soon found fresh deer beds. Axel picked himself a stand on a rocky ridge and had intended to stay there while his partner made a short drive. Sweaty from walking, he chilled quickly in the cold wind and moved around to get warm. He found the track of a big deer and began to follow it through the timber. The track led north but Axel believed he was going south. When he failed to jump the deer in an hour or so he tried a stand once more, planning to wait there for his companion.
