41. At last they stopped for the night in a sheltered valley where there were two or three wigwams. He watched them go into one of these, and then he could not think what to do next. The night was setting in bitter cold. The shoe he took the string from had come off in his running, and that foot was nearly frozen, and would have been quite if he had not tied some moss to the bottom of it with his pocket handkerchief. The hand that had no mitten was frozen. He had eaten nothing but a few boxberry plums and boxberry leaves.
42. It was too late to think of finding his way home that night. He lay down on the snow; and, as the Indians lifted the mats to pass in and out, he could see fires burning and smell meats cooking.
43. Then he began to feel sleepy, and after that knew nothing more till he woke inside a wigwam, and found two Indian women rubbing him with snow. They afterward gave him plenty to eat.
He did not see Nathaniel and little Polly; they were in another wigwam.
44. There were two Indians squatting on the floor, one of them quite old. Pretty soon another came in; and Philip knew he was one of those that carried off the children, because he had Florinda's workbag hanging around his neck. He thought, no doubt, from seeing it on Nathaniel's neck, that there was the place to wear it.
45. Philip suffered dreadful pain in his foot and hand, but shut his mouth tight for fear he might groan. He said afterward, when questioned about this part of his story, that he was not going to let them hear a white boy groan.
46. Now, the older one of those two squaws in the wigwam felt inclined to save Philip. So next morning, before light, when the Indians all had gone off hunting, she sent the other squaw out on some errand, and then told Philip, in broken English and by signs, that he must run away that very morning. She bound up his foot; she gave him a moccasin to wear on it; she gave him a bag of pounded corn and a few strips of meat.
She gave him a bag of corn.
47. Philip had found out that the Indians supposed him to be a captive escaped from another party; and he thought it would be better not to mention Nathaniel and little Polly, but to get home as quickly as he could and tell people where they were.