gather wood, and did not care how soon death should put an end to their
miseries.

The out-of-door duties would have fallen wholly upon my Aunt Betsy's
two sons and on John Baptiste and on my crippled father, had the women
lost their fortitude. They, however, hid their fears from their
children, even from each other, and helped to gather fuel, hunt cattle,
and keep camp.

Axes were dull, green wood was hard to cut, and harder to carry,
whether through loose, dry snow, or over crusts made slippery by sleet
and frost. Cattle tracks were covered over. Some of the poor creatures
had perished under bushes where they sought shelter. A few had become
bewildered and strayed; others were found under trees in snow pits,
which they themselves had made by walking round and round the trunks to
keep from being snowed under. These starvelings were shot to end their
sufferings, and also with the hope that their hides and fleshless bones
might save the lives of our snow-beleaguered party. Every part of the
animals was saved for food. The locations of the carcasses were marked
so that they could be brought piece by piece into camp; and even the
green hides were spread against the huts to serve in case of need.

After the storm broke, John Baptiste was sent with a letter from my
mother to the camp near the lake. He was absent a number of days, for
upon his arrival there, he found a party of fourteen ready to start
next morning, on foot, across the summit. He joined it, but after two
days of vain effort, the party returned to camp, and he came back to us
with an answer to the letter he had delivered.

We then learned that most of those at the lake were better housed than