We Were Safe, And Then, Too, Came Limp
Weariness Such As No Ordinary Work Ever Produces, However Hard It May
Be.
Wearily we stumbled down through the woods, over logs and brush
and roots, devil's-clubs pricking us at every faint blundering
tumble.
At last we got out on the smooth mud slope with only a mile
of slow but sure dragging of weary limbs to camp. The Indians had
been firing guns to guide me and had a fine supper and fire ready,
though fearing they would be compelled to seek us in the morning, a
care not often applied to me. Stickeen and I were too tired to eat
much, and, strange to say, too tired to sleep. Both of us, springing
up in the night again and again, fancied we were still on that
dreadful ice bridge in the shadow of death.
Nevertheless, we arose next morning in newness of life. Never before
had rocks and ice and trees seemed so beautiful and wonderful, even
the cold, biting rainstorm that was blowing seemed full of
loving-kindness, wonderful compensation for all that we had endured,
and we sailed down the bay through the gray, driving rain rejoicing.
Chapter XVI
Glacier Bay
While Stickeen and I were away, a Hoona, one of the head men of the
tribe, paid Mr. Young a visit, and presented him with porpoise-meat
and berries and much interesting information. He naturally expected a
return visit, and when we called at his house, a mile or two down the
fiord, he said his wives were out in the rain gathering fresh berries
to complete a feast prepared for us.
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