"Even the stern men around them bore up with less fortitude. Rude oaths were muttered from time to time, and teeth ground together, with that strange wild look that heralds insanity. Once or twice I fancied that I observed a look of still stranger, still wilder expression, when the black ring forms around the eye--when the muscles twitch and quiver along gaunt, famished jaws--when men gaze guilty-like at each other. O God! it was fearful! The half-robber discipline, voluntary at the best, had vanished under the levelling-rod of a common suffering, and I trembled to think-- "`It clars a leetle, out tharawa!' "It was the voice of the trapper, Garey, who had risen and stood pointing toward the East. "In an instant we were all upon our feet, looking in the direction, indicated. Sure enough, there was a break in the lead-coloured sky--a yellowish streak, that widened out as we continued gazing--the flakes fell lighter and thinner, and in two hours more it had ceased snowing altogether. "Half-a-dozen of us, shouldering our rifles, struck down the valley. We would make one more attempt to trample a road through the drift. It was a vain one. The snow was over our heads, and after struggling for two hours, we had not gained above two hundred yards. Here we caught a glimpse of what lay before us. As far as the eye could reach, it rested upon the same deep impassable masses. Despair and hunger paralysed our exertions, and, dropping off one by one, we returned to the camp. We fell down around the fires in sullen silence. Garey continued pacing back and forth, now glancing up at the sky, and at times kneeling down, and running his hand over the surface of the snow. At length he approached the fire, and in his slow, drawling manner, remarked-- "`It's a-gwine to friz, I reckin.' "`Well! and if it does?' asked one of his comrades, without caring for an answer to the question. "`Wal, an iv it does,' repeated the trapper, `we'll walk out o' this hyar jug afore sun-up, an' upon a good hard trail too.' "The expression of every face was changed, as if by magic. Several leaped to their feet. Gode, the Canadian, skilled in snow-craft, ran to a bank, and drawing his hand along the combing, shouted back-- "`_C'est vrai; il gele; il gele_!' "A cold wind soon after set in, and, cheered by the brightening prospect, we began to think of the fires, that, during our late moments of reckless indifference, had been almost suffered to burn out. The Delawares, seizing their tomahawks, commenced hacking at the pines, while others dragged forward the fallen trees, lopping off their branches with the keen scalping-knife. "At this moment a peculiar cry attracted our attention, and, looking around, we perceived one of the Indians drop suddenly upon his knees, striking the ground with his hatchet. "`What is it? what is it?' shouted several voices, in almost as many languages. "`_Yam-yam! yam-yam_!' replied the Indian, still digging at the frozen ground.