'If he don't, we'll never get there in this world never!' It was a black and icy wall of night and storm on every side of us.
I never saw a time when the light of God's heaven was so utterly extinguished; the cold never went to my bone as on that bitter night.
My hands and feet were numb with aching, as the roar of the trees grew fainter in the open.

I remember how I lagged, and how the old man urged me on, and how we toiled in the wind and darkness, straining our eyes for some familiar thing.

Of a sudden we stumbled upon a wall that we had passed an hour or so before.
'Oh!' he groaned, and made that funny, deprecating cluck with his tongue, that I have heard so much from Yankee lips.
'God o' mercy!' said he, 'we've gone 'round in a half-circle.

Now we'll take the wall an' mebbe it'll bring us home.' I thought I couldn't keep my feet any longer, for an irresistible drowsiness had come over me.

The voice of Uncle Eb seemed far away, and when I sank in the snow and shut my eyes to sleep he shook me as a terrier shakes a rat.
'Wake up, my boy,' said he, 'ye musn't sleep.' Then he boxed my ears until I cried, and picked me up and ran with me along the side of the wall.