“Oh, but won’t that be eatin’ now!” enthused Andy. “And there’ll be plenty o’ trout, too, when we gets out, and salmon’ll be runnin’ th’ middle o’ July! I could eat half a salmon now if I had un!”
The wind had died out, though all that night the snow fell, but in mid-forenoon of the following day the clouds lightened, and shortly after noon the sun broke out, warm and brilliant.
“We can start now!” exclaimed Andy, “and we’ll make th’ narrows tilt before midnight, whatever, and have a good supper.”
“We can try un,” said David dubiously, “but I’m fearin’ we’ll find th’ fresh snow more than we can manage. There’s been no wind for a day t’ drive un off th’ ice, and yesterday and last night it snowed wonderful hard.”
David was correct. They had found the river bed badly clogged on their journey down from the Lake Namaycush tilt. Now it was vastly worse. They sank to their waists, the moment they attempted to leave the tilt, and finally, quite satisfied that travel was impossible, they retreated disconsolate and discouraged to the tilt.
“We’ll starve now,” said Andy, in a tone almost of resignation. “There’s no way out.”
“’Tis a wonderful bad fix,” David admitted.
“I’m growin’—wonderful weak—in th’ knees,” Andy confessed.
“I feels a weakness, too,” said David, “but not so much hunger as yesterday.”
“’Tis queer, now, but I’m not feelin’ th’ hunger so bad, either. But I feels sleepy and weak,” Andy agreed. “I wonders, now, why ’tis? I were thinkin’ we’d grow hungrier and hungrier, till we couldn’t stand un.”