The advanced guard of the army of the wilderness was composed of Morgan's troops, who, with incredible labor and hardship, ascended the Dead river and crossed the highlands into the Canadian frontier, one hundred and twenty miles from Quebec, with their last rations in their knapsacks, and with their passage obstructed by a vast swamp overflowed with water from two to three feet deep. Smith's and Hendrick's companies reached it first, and halted to wait for stragglers. Mrs. Warner came up with another woman, the wife of Sergeant Grier, of Hendrick's company--as much a heroine as herself, though less unfortunate in her experience. The soldiers were entering the water, breaking the ice as they went with their gun-stocks, and the women courageously wading after them, when some one shouted, "Where is Warner?" Jemima, who had not noticed her husband's disappearance, started back in search of him. Warner was no more enfeebled in body than many of the other men, but his fortitude had given out. Begging his comrades to delay their march for a while, she hurried back in search of her husband, but an hour passed, and his company marched without him. Utterly destitute of that forethought which is so necessary an element of endurance and resolution in extremity, he had eaten all his rations, which should have lasted him two days. Knowing that the supplies of the army were exhausted, his faint heart saw no hope ahead. His brave wife had had a sad trial with him. From the day that provisions had began to be scarce he had been the same improvident laggard. Familiar with his failings, she was in the habit of hoarding food, the price of her own secret fastings, against such need as this. She now exerted herself to the utmost to rouse him, and induce him to press on and rejoin his comrades. It was long before she prevailed, and at last, when they started, the army had gone on, and Warner and his heroic wife were forced to make their way through the wilderness alone. She realized that her husband's safety depended entirely upon herself, and took care of him as she would have taken care of a child. Refusing to entertain, for a moment, the thought of perishing in the wilderness, she did her best to cheer her husband and drive such thoughts from his mind. It was a thankless task, but her love and devotion were equal to everything. Endowed with a strong constitution, and free from disease, the young soldier could have survived the terrible march to Canada, had he possessed but a little of her courage and good sense. Taking the lead in the bitter journey, through swamps and snows, threading the tangled forests, climbing cliffs, and fording half-frozen creeks,--day after day the heroic woman pushed her faint-hearted husband on, feeding him from her own little store of ember-baked cakes, and eating almost nothing herself till they were more than half way to Sertigan on the Chaudiere river, toward Quebec.