No one could tell. The danger of
starvation or of death from exhaustion was more imminent, more
pressing, and the five resolved to let scouting alone for the
rest of the day and seek game.
"There's bound to be a lot of it in these woods," said Shif'less
Sol, "though it's frightened out of the path by our big crowd,
but we ought to find it."
Henry and Shif'less Sol went in one direction, and Paul, Tom, and
Long Jim in another. But with all their hunting they succeeded
in finding only one little deer, which fell to the rifle of
Silent Tom. It made small enough portions for the supper and
breakfast of nearly a hundred people, but it helped wonderfully,
and so did the fires which Henry and his comrades would now have
built, even had they not been needed for the cooking. They saw
that light and warmth, the light and warmth of glowing coals,
would alone rouse life in this desolate band.
They slept the second night on the ground among the trees, and
the next morning they entered that gloomy region of terrible
memory, the Great Dismal Swamp of the North, known sometimes, to
this day, as "The Shades of Death."
CHAPTER XII
THE SHADES OF DEATH
"The Shades of Death" is a marsh on a mountain top, the great,
wet, and soggy plain of the Pocono and Broad mountains.
Pages:
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245