It was horrible to see the wild, haggard men stagger in, and to witness their despair when they received nothing to eat but such lily-roots and ground-nuts as we could find and boil. There was but little nourishment in them.
Ben Bradley left camp with three companions. They put on their packs. Ben looked at his compass, and said:—
"Good-by, boys. In three days we shall be at home."
They were never afterward seen alive. Several years later some hunters from the Merrimac found a skeleton in the White Mountains. They knew it was Bradley's from the hair, and the peculiar leather strap with which his cue was tied.
After Rogers had been gone three days, I said to Edmund:—
"I can't stand this any longer. This place is like a mad-house. We shall go crazy if we stay here. Let us get some logs, make a raft, and drift down the river."
We talked it over that afternoon, and the next morning began building a raft. It was a rickety little affair. We finished it in one day, but were so feeble that we found it hard work. We cut a couple of saplings for poles, and took some wood, from which we whittled a couple of paddles.
One of the men, who had been over the river before, said:—
"Look out for a waterfall and rapids, some twenty miles down, boys. Don't get carried over them, or you'll be lost. And there's another bad fall and rapids below that."
We poled the raft into the current, and let it drift. Toward night we paddled to the shore and camped there.