Instead, the same energy that had done these things flowed into the wasted muscles and reeling wills of the men, making them move--nay, moving them--till they tottered the several intervening miles to the cached boat, underneath which they fell together and lay motionless a long time.
Light as the task would have been for a strong man to lower the small boat to the ground, it took Daylight hours.

And many hours more, day by day, he dragged himself around it, lying on his side to calk the gaping seams with moss.

Yet, when this was done, the river still held.
Its ice had risen many feet, but would not start down-stream.

And one more task waited, the launching of the boat when the river ran water to receive it.

Vainly Daylight staggered and stumbled and fell and crept through the snow that was wet with thaw, or across it when the night's frost still crusted it beyond the weight of a man, searching for one more squirrel, striving to achieve one more transmutation of furry leap and scolding chatter into the lifts and tugs of a man's body that would hoist the boat over the rim of shore-ice and slide it down into the stream.
Not till the twentieth of May did the river break.