Daylight prospected through the snow, and found occasional patches of mossberries.

At the best, mossberries were composed practically of seeds and water, with a tough rind of skin about them; but the berries he found were of the preceding year, dry and shrivelled, and the nourishment they contained verged on the minus quality.

Scarcely better was the bark of young saplings, stewed for an hour and swallowed after prodigious chewing.
April drew toward its close, and spring smote the land.

The days stretched out their length.

Under the heat of the sun, the snow began to melt, while from down under the snow arose the trickling of tiny streams.