At last, falling on his knees from the shock of exertion, he got the boat poised on a secure balance on top the wall.

Crawling on hands and knees, he placed in the boat his rabbit-skin robe, the rifle, and the pail.

He did not bother with the ax.

It meant an additional crawl of twenty feet and back, and if the need for it should arise he well knew he would be past all need.
Elijah proved a bigger task than he had anticipated.

A few inches at a time, resting in between, he dragged him over the ground and up a broken rubble of ice to the side of the boat.