At least we cannot make ourselves any worse off than we are now." They toiled on, now and then falling on the slippery trail, their vitality sinking lower and lower.

Occasionally they had glimpses of a vast desolate region under a somber sky, peaks and ridges and slopes over which clouds hovered, the whole seeming to resent the entry of man and to offer to him every kind of resistance.
Robert was now wet through and through.

No part of his body had escaped and he knew that his vitality was at such a low ebb that at least seventy-five per cent, of it was gone.

He wanted to stop, his cold and aching limbs cried out for rest, and he craved heat at the cost of every risk, but his will was still firm, and he would not be the first to speak.

It was Willet who suggested when they came to a slight dip that they make an effort to build a fire.
"The human body, no matter how strong it may be naturally, and how much it may be toughened by experience, will stand only so much," he said.
They were constantly building fires in the wilderness, but the fire they built that morning was the hardest of them all to start.