The Ammi proceeded on their way, but were terribly afflicted with the cold, which kept steadily increasing. Their feet and hands suffered most, for which they had as yet provided no covering. Walking through the snow and on the ice they had frequently frozen feet. Osa, a young and pretty girl, admired by many, was completely overcome, and fell back in the march to die. Aloo, her lover, sought means of taking her along; but, after carrying her awhile in his arms, and enlisting others to aid him, he gave up exhausted, but stayed with her while the rest moved on, resolved to die also. As nothing more has been heard of them it is believed that they perished together. As the Ammi marched forward, they heard dreadful reports from the Apes which they met, of the cold of the north. The whole country was covered with snow; the rivers were frozen; the trees were dead; the animals had left the country, or were perishing; great mountains of ice had formed in the valleys; all fruit had disappeared, and the roots were under the snow and could not be dug out of the hard ground. In the famine which accompanied this change animals fell to eating one another, not only the dead but the living, so that when the survivors reached the south they were much thinned out. “It is foolish,” said Oko, on hearing these reports, “to go back to fight the Lali. Let us rather return home, gather up what is left, and go south also.” “Not till Sosee is recovered,” said Koree. “Neither Cold, nor Snow, nor Famine shall make us desist from war. I mean to march through all these to where she is, and to take her from the Lali even though they fight twice as hard as the Storm.” “She has, no doubt, left long since with some lover among the Lali, and is now in the south,” replied Oko. This was a more dreadful thought to Koree than that she should be perishing in the north. He accordingly gave a savage look and growl at Oko, and replied: “Whether she be in the snows or in the arms of a lover, I shall rescue her.” He accordingly urged the army to quicken its pace, although to do so, they had to leave many perishing ones to die. He feared more that they would not find the Lali than they would, and so hurried to overtake those whom he had shortly before hurried to escape from. Watch-the-girls opposed this excessive speed, on account of the many females in her charge who could not keep up, and whom she was unwilling to abandon in the snow. “If we go so fast,” she said, “we will have no forces left when we reach the Lali, and will have to fight them with our leaders only.” “I can whip them all myself,” said Pounder, who was eager for the fight, and thought little of those who perished, whether of the enemy or of his own people.