It happened that Dick and Tom were at the front of the division, when they turned the corner of a projecting rock, and came unexpectedly on a group that stood around a fire, beside which a man was lying. It required but a glance to inform Dick that this group consisted of Sergeant Grier's party and that the man on the ground was Lieutenant M'Cleland. The sight of a damaged boat, and of a rock near the verge of a cataract, told the story,--that the boat had lodged on the rock, and that the men had managed to bring the feeble lieutenant ashore in time to save him from speedy death. In a moment Dick was kneeling at his side, whither he was soon followed by Captain Hendricks and Lieutenant Simpson. "It was a foolish thing to let you go by the river," said Hendricks to the prostrate man, whose breath came in quick, feeble movements, and whose weather-browned features had an ashy pallor. "We'll carry you on as we did over the mountain,--all the way to Quebec," said Dick, pressing M'Cleland's hand. But the lieutenant merely smiled faintly, took on a look of drowsy resignation, essayed to shake his head, and whispered the word, "Farewell!" Dick had to yield the hand he held, and his place by his friend's side, that his captain and certain of his comrades might clasp the hand once ere it should be cold. Even as Dick was thinking of the sunny April morning when his friend had ridden up, all life and animation, with the news of Lexington, the soldier sighed his last farewell. When the troops took up their march and left the dead man there, as they had left many another in those bleak wilds, Dick had a moment of heart-sickness, when all seemed dark before him, and when he wished that he and M'Cleland might be back in their Pennsylvania valley, and that there had never been a war. "Heart up, lad!" came over his shoulder, softly, the voice of old Tom. "It's mony a friend ye'll leave cauld by the wayside ere ye come to lie there cauld yoursel'. Ye'll learn to keep looking forward, as ye gang over the hills and far away. Sae hauld up your head, and swallow your Adam's apple, and fasten your mind's eye on Quebec!" And Dick braced himself and did so. By the 29th of October the last mouthful of meat was eaten and the last biscuit gone. A little flour remained, and this was divided equally, each man receiving five pounds. This they boiled in kettles of water, without salt, into what they called a bleary, subsequently eating it out of the wooden bowls around each one of which several half-numb fellows sat or lay at meals. At such times, those who were not reduced to a state of wretched apathy or speechless despair, discussed the probabilities of their ever receiving food from Colonel Arnold's advance party, or of their perishing in the chill wilderness. Many were the growlers and foreboders of evil.