He wavered, he picked his footing with great care when a declivity dipped before him; he stopped every few yards and rested when he was making a climb.

As for Casey, he managed to hold himself on the narrow back of William, but that was all.
He understood perfectly that the next twenty-four hours would tell the story for him and for William.

He had a sturdy body however and a sturdy brain that had never weakened its hold on facts.

So he clung to his reason and pushed fear away from him and said doggedly that he would go forward as long as he could crawl or William could carry him, and he would die or he would not die, as Fate decided for him.

He wondered, too, about the camp whose fire he had seen.
Then he saw the light.