Then a layer of green spruce boughs were spread,
that their bodies might not come in contact with the snow. When
this task was completed, Kah-Chucte and Gowhee proceeded to take
care of their feet. Their icebound moccasins were sadly worn by
much travel, and the sharp ice of the river jams had cut them to
rags.
Their Siwash socks were similarly conditioned, and when these had
been thawed and removed, the dead-white tips of the toes, in the
various stages of mortification, told their simple tale of the
trail.
Leaving the two to the drying of their footgear, Sitka Charley
turned back over the course he had come. He, too, had a mighty
longing to sit by the fire and tend his complaining flesh, but
the honor and the law forbade. He toiled painfully over the
frozen field, each step a protest, every muscle in revolt.
Several times, where the open water between the jams had recently
crusted, he was forced to miserably accelerate his movements as
the fragile footing swayed and threatened beneath him. In such
places death was quick and easy; but it was not his desire to
endure no more.
His deepening anxiety vanished as two Indians dragged into view
round a bend in the river.
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