sed neither spring nor runlet on our course, for I've looked
for such," said Billington removing his leather cap and wiping his brow
upon his sleeve. "And though 't is frosty weather, such a diligent march
as ours heats the blood shrewdly."

"We will halt beside this coppice for a space," ordered Standish
glancing at Allerton's pallid face; "and do thou search yonder hollow,
Billington, for water. Alden go you with him, and keep an eye on his
course."

The two men thus detailed plunged into the little hollow where indeed
water should have been, but found only a pool so shallow and so
sheltered as to have frozen quite solid; from this they brought some
pieces of ice with which Allerton was so revived as to resume his course
for another mile when he again broke down, while all the rest suffered
so sensibly from thirst that they could not conceal their distress.
Another halt was called, and all the younger men dispersed in various
directions, while Allerton lay stretched upon the ground, his parched
mouth open, and his eyes half closed. Beside him stood Standish, real
concern upon his usually stern features, and in his hand a flask of
spirits, from which the exhausted and fevered man turned loathingly.

"'T is as good schnapps as ever came through a still," said Standish
wistfully; "and if thou couldst stomach it must surely do thee good."

"Water, water!" moaned Allerton.

"Ay, a little water mingled with it were better for thee just now,"
replied the Captain soothingly. "But sith water may not be had"--

"Ho, men! Water, water, a running brook!" cried Alden's hearty voice, as
he came bursting his way through the thicket. "A running brook and a
deer drinking at its spring."

"And why didst not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou
great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a
rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs,
all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and
found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees
as to offer only a southern exposure to the weather. The snow of the
previous day had already disappeared from this favored spot, and the
little runlet with its welling spring sparkled free from frost among the
long grasses, sweet-gale, and low shrubbery of the place; among these
shrubs more than one dainty track leading from the forest to the runlet
showed that here the deer came daily down to dri