There were places where these grew so close together that they could scarcely force a passage through, and others where they had gone down before a screaming gale and lay piled in a tangled chaos over which it was almost impossible to flounder.

It was dark in the timber, and they could not see the broken ends of the branches that rent their clothing; but they went on somehow, down and down, until, when they reached a clearer space where the moonlight shone through, Ida sank down limply on a fallen tree.

Her skirt was rent to tatters, and one shoe had been torn almost to pieces.
"I simply can't go on," she said.
Weston leaned against a neighboring fir, looking down at her very compassionately, though she noticed that his face, on which the moonlight fell, was somewhat drawn and gray.
"Try to think," he said.
"I can't," replied Ida, "I only want to sleep." Her companion moved forward and quietly laid his hand on her arm as though to urge her to rise.
"Don't you understand how it is?
Your friends are up yonder in the frost with nothing to eat.

I have to take the Indians back for them." "Then you must go on," the girl said faintly.
Weston shook his head.
"No," he declared, "not without you.

That's out of the question.