And the horse was preserved in as useful
a sense as ever apricots were preserved or strawberries.
On a fire, painfully devised out of broom and withered leaves, a horse-
steak was dressed, for drink, snow as allowed _a discretion_. This
ought to have revived the party, and Kate, perhaps, it _did_. But
the poor deserters were thinly clad, and they had not the boiling heart
of Catalina. More and more they drooped. Kate did her best to cheer
them. But the march was nearly at an end for _them_, and they
were going in one half hour to receive their last billet. Yet, before
this consummation, they have a strange spectacle to see; such as few
places could show, but the upper chambers of the Cordilleras. They had
reached a billowy scene of rocky masses, large and small, looking
shockingly black on their perpendicular sides as they rose out of the
vast snowy expanse. Upon the highest of these, that was accessible,
Kate mounted to look around her, and she saw--oh, rapture at such an
hour!--a man sitting on a shelf of rock with a gun by his side. She
shouted with joy to her comrades, and ran down to communicate the
joyful news. Here was a sportsman, watching, perhaps, for an eagle; and
now they would have relief. One man's cheek kindled with the hectic of
sudden joy, and he rose eagerly to march.
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