There were six hundred yards and more unexcavated, and but three days of his time remained.
The snow ceased at nightfall and work was instantly resumed by aid of the torches; again the desperate scraping of snow, bundled men at fires and sheltered by windbreaks, the drilling of holes in the frozen ground, the reliefs every two hours, the thawing of nipped fingers and toes and noses.

All night hot food and boiling coffee were served at intervals to the cold and hungry labourers.

At nine o'clock next morning two hundred yards of dirt went spraying into the air, with the subsequent struggle in the long hole: fresnos bearing forth what earth was loose and what the plows broke out; the horses, blinded by the glare of snow, staggering forward under curse and lash; the men toiling in a sort of grim fury.

A maximum of effort finished one hundred and fifty yards more by eleven o'clock.

Carrigan ordered all work to stop until nine next morning.
"The men are 'all in'," he told Lee.