He had found a little ice that had frozen under the clear sky.

It was not thicker than window glass.
After putting a piece in our mouths we gathered all we could and put it into the little quart camp kettle to melt.

We gathered just a kettle full, besides what we ate as we were gathering, and kindled a little fire and melted it.
I can but think how providential it was that we started in the night for in an hour after the sun had risen that little sheet of ice would have melted and the water sank into the sand.

Having quenched our thirst we could now eat, and found that we were nearly starved also.

In making this meal we used up all our little store of water, but we felt refreshed and our lives renewed so that we had better courage to go on.
We now took our course west again taking a bee line for a bluff that lay a little to the south of the big snow mountain.