We gave them up without an effort at recovering them, and cursed the lying books that said horses would stay by their masters for protection and companionship in a distressful time like ours.
We were miserable enough, before; we felt still more forlorn, now.
Patiently, but with blighted hope, we broke more sticks and piled them, and once more the Prussian shot them into annihilation.

Plainly, to light a fire with a pistol was an art requiring practice and experience, and the middle of a desert at midnight in a snow-storm was not a good place or time for the acquiring of the accomplishment.

We gave it up and tried the other.

Each man took a couple of sticks and fell to chafing them together.

At the end of half an hour we were thoroughly chilled, and so were the sticks.