She broke a bit of sugar, and with
considerable effort forced it between his teeth with a few drops of
snow-water. She saw him swallow, then a slight convulsive motion stirred
his features, he stretched his limbs feebly, and in a moment more opened
his eyes and looked upon her. How fervent were her thanks to the Great
Father, whom she forgot not day or night.
Thus she went on. The tea leaves were eaten, the seeds chewed, the sugar
all dispensed. The days were bright, and compared with the nights,
comfortable. Occasionally, when the sun shone, their voices were heard,
though generally they sat or lay in a kind of stupor from which she
often found it alarmingly difficult to arouse them. When the gray
evening twilight drew its deepening curtain over the cold glittering
heavens and the icy waste, and when the famishing bodies had been
covered from the frost that pinched them with but little less keenness
than the unrelenting hunger, the solitude seemed to rend her very brain.
Her own powers faltered. But she said her prayers over many times in the
darkness as well as the light, and always with renewed trust in Him who
had not yet forsaken her, and thus she sat out her weary watch. After
the turning of the night she always sat watching for the morning star,
which seemed every time she saw it rise clear in the cold eastern sky,
to renew the promise, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.
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