This was a score of feet away, and at the end of an hour
he had managed to get the boat that far. He was sick with nausea
from his exertions, and at times it seemed that blindness smote
him, for he could not see, his eyes vexed with spots and points
of light that were as excruciating as diamond-dust, his heart
pounding up in his throat and suffocating him. Elijah betrayed
no interest, did not move nor open his eyes; and Daylight fought
out his battle alone. At last, falling on his knees from the
shock of exertion, he got the boat poised on a secure balance on
top the wall. Crawling on hands and knees, he placed in the boat
his rabbit-skin robe, the rifle, and the pail. He did not bother
with the ax. It meant an additional crawl of twenty feet and
back, and if the need for it should arise he well knew he would
be past all need.
Elijah proved a bigger task than he had anticipated. A few
inches at a time, resting in between, he dragged him over the
ground and up a broken rubble of ice to the side of the boat.
But into the boat he could not get him. Elijah's limp body was
far more difficult to lift and handle than an equal weight of
like dimensions but rigid.
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