and difficult developed a habit of falling down and being to rise daylight gave of his own strength to lift him to his feet whereupon the older man would on he stumbled and fell again on the day they have reached the boat utterly when daylight raised him he fell again daylight to walk with him supporting him but such was daylight s own weakness that they fell together dragging to the bank a rude camp was made and daylight started out in search of it was at this time that he likewise developed the falling habit in the evening he found his first but darkness came on without his getting a certain shot with primitive patience he waited till next day and then within the hour the was his the major portion he fed to for himself the parts and the bones but such is the of life that this small creature this trifle of meat that moved by being eaten to the meat of the men the same power to move no longer did the nm up trees leap from branch to branch or cling chattering to giddy instead the same energy that had done these things flowed into the wasted muscles and wills of the men making them move � nay moving them � till they the several intervening miles to the boat which they fell together and lay motionless a long time light as the task would have been for a strong man to lower the small boat to the ground it took daylight hours and many hours more day by day he dragged himself around it lying on his side to the gaping with moss yet when this was done the river still held its ice had risen many feet but not start down stream and one more task waited the of the boat when the river ran water to receive it vainly daylight staggered and and fell and crept through the snow that was wet with or across it when the night s frost still it beyond the weight of a man searching for one more striving to achieve one more of leap and scolding chatter into the lifts and of a man s body that would the boat over the rim of and slide it down into the stream not till the twentieth of may did the it down stream movement began at five in the morning and already were the days so long that daylight sat up and watched the ice nm was too far gone to be interested in the spectacle though vaguely conscious he lay without movement while the ice tore by great cakes of it against the bank trees and out earth by of tons all about them the land shook and from the shock of these tremendous at the end of an hour the nm stopped somewhere below it was blocked by a jam then the river began to rise lifting the ice on its breast till it was higher than the bank from behind ever more water bore down and ever more of tons of ice added their weight to the the and became terrific huge cakes of ice were squeezed out till they into the air like seeds squeezed from between the thumb and forefinger of a child while all along the banks a wall of ice was forced up when the jam broke the noise of grinding and for another hour the nm continued the river fell rapidly but the wall of ice on top the bank and extending down into the falling water remained the tail of the ice nm passed and for the first time in six months daylight saw open water he knew that the ice had not yet passed out from the upper reaches of the that it lay in and in those upper reaches and that it might break loose and come down in a second run any time but the need was too desperate for him to linger was so far gone that he might pass at any moment as for himself he was not sure that enough strength remained in his wasted muscles to the boat it was all a if he waited for the second ice run would surely die and most probably himself if he succeeded in the boat if he kept ahead of the second ice run ii he did not get caught by some of the burning daylight from the upper if luck favored in all these essential particulars as well as in a score of minor ones they would reach sixty mile and be saved if � and again the if � he had strength enough to land the boat at sixty mile and not go by he set to work the wall of ice was five feet above the ground on which the boat rested first for the best place he foimd where a huge cake of ice upward from the river that ran fifteen feet below to the top of the wall this was a score of feet away and at the end of an hour he had managed to get the boat that far he was sick with from his exertions and at times it seemed that blindness smote him for he could not see his eyes vexed with spots and points of light that were as as diamond dust his heart up in his throat and him betrayed no interest did not move nor open his eyes and daylight fought out his battle alone at last falling on his knees from the shock of exertion he got the boat poised on a secure balance on top the wall crawling on hands and knees he placed in the boat his rabbit skin robe the rifle and the he did not bother with the axe it meant an additional crawl of twenty feet and back and if the need for it should arise he well knew he would be past all 