In this manner, many days and nights passed on, during which she encountered many imminent dangers, and severe conflicts, and made but little progress. Hunger, weariness, a continual sense of danger, and that sickness of the heart, which solitude and suspense beget, were her inseparable companions. Every day, her hope of ultimately reaching the home of her childhood grew fainter and fainter. But she had a woman's endurance, and a woman's fertility of resource. She never for a moment repented her flight. She would have preferred death in any form to a forced espousal with the murderer of her family. Sometimes with roots and herbs, sometimes with nutritious mosses, and sometimes with wild fruits and nuts, she continued to satisfy the cravings of appetite, and to sustain her severely tried fortitude, for the fatigues and perils that were yet before her. The forest seemed interminable; and so indeed it might well have been regarded, for she was continually travelling round and round, in the same track, having only an occasional glimpse of the sun to direct her way, or a view of the stars, when she climbed some tall tree at night. She knew little of the direction in which she was going; but she was sure that that forest lay between her enemy and her home, and was therefore resolved, at any expense of labor and suffering, to find her way through it, or perish in the attempt. After several weeks of incredible toil, fatigue, hardship and danger, the brave persevering Tula emerged into a wide opening, having a considerable mountain on one side, and a large sheet of water, and a stream from the mountain pouring into it, on the other. It was a beautiful spot, but the whole aspect of it was new and strange. She was confident she had not passed that way, while a captive in the hands of the Athapuscows. She was now wholly at a loss which way to turn. To retrace her steps through the intricacies of that dark forest, would be as vain as the thought of it was appalling. To go on, when she was absolutely certain she was out of her track, seemed little less than madness. To choose either the right hand or the left, was to leap in the dark, and involve herself in new doubts and difficulties. She needed rest. Her apparel was torn by her difficult passages through the tangled thickets, and her frequent contests with the enemies she found there. Pondering deeply on the difficulties before her, she began to think, that if there was any place of shelter near, she would make herself a new home, and live and die alone in the great wilderness.