On the march, the troops came to a place where the Chaudiere swept a smooth beach, through which protruded parts of sand-roots. At sight of these, many of the men broke madly from the file, dug out the roots with their fingers, and ravenously ate them on the spot. Captain Morgan, sharing without exemption the sufferings of the men, was no less severe against insubordination during this starving time than he had formerly been. His rigid yet fair rule, and the kindly and tactful authority of Hendricks, kept the men moving along towards the distant goal, however listlessly and hopelessly some of them went. As for the Lancaster company, if Captain Smith was unduly boisterous, his men had before them such examples of unquenchable spirit as young Henry, and of unwearying patience as Shafer, the half blind drummer. But it was, on the whole, a despairing band of haggard and half naked men that moved at crawling pace along the rocky Chaudiere. "The farther we march, the farther away seems the Promised Land," muttered the man whom old Tom had once likened to the murmuring children of Israel. MacAlister, who had begun to limp, for the once made no answer, and Dick, toiling heavily along behind him, had to clench his teeth and think of the girl in Quebec, to keep from succumbing to the general despair. Suddenly, from the tree-hidden distance in front, came a sound that made every man's head go up in eager, half-incredulous joy. It was the lowing of cattle. The troops pushed rapidly forward, every ear and eye alert. When a clear space was reached, and a few men of Colonel Arnold's party, with some Canadians and Indians, were seen coming up the river with a herd of cattle, several of the soldiers shrieked wildly, others laughed like lunatics, many wept like women, and some rushed forward and threw their arms around the great brown necks of the cattle. Dick smiled and cheered and waved his hat, and old Tom's face warmed for a moment into a gratified grin. In after years both often used to say that the joyfullest sight of their lives was that of these cattle coming up the river on that wintry day in the wilderness. While they ate, around their camp-fire, they heard how Arnold's party had fared, how three of its boats had been dashed to pieces on the way down the Chaudiere, the cargoes lost, the crews put in great peril of their lives, one boat-load of men nearly thrown over a cataract; how the party was cordially received at Sertigan, the nearest French settlement, whose first house Arnold had reached on the night of October 30th, and how he had started provisions back towards the army early the next morning.