He left me by the fire a little while and went looking on all sides and came back no wiser.

We were both thirsty and started off on rough footing, without stopping to eat.

We climbed and crawled for hours, it seemed to me, and everywhere the fallen tree trunks were heaped in our way.

Uncle Eb sat down on one of them awhile to rest.
'Like the bones o' the dead,' said he, as he took a chew of tobacco and picked at the rotten skeleton of a fallen tree.

We were both pretty well out of breath and of hope also, if I remember rightly, when we rested again under the low hanging boughs of a basswood for a bite of luncheon.
Uncle Eb opened the little box of honey and spread some of it on our bread and butter.