It is the last resource of failure.

We shall have done our best." "Certainly, Leo, we shall have done our best, if sixteen years of tramping over mountains and through eternal snows in pursuit of a dream of the night can be called best." "You know what I believe," he answered stubbornly, and there was silence between us, for here arguments did not avail.

Also even then I could not think that all our toils and sufferings would be in vain.
The dawn came, and by its light we looked at one another anxiously, each of us desiring to see what strength was left to his companion.

Wild creatures we should have seemed to the eyes of any civilized person.
Leo was now over forty years of age, and certainly his maturity had fulfilled the promise of his youth, for a more magnificent man I never knew.

Very tall, although he seemed spare to the eye, his girth matched his height, and those many years of desert life had turned his muscles to steel.