“The eternal night-it surely seemed eternal to us-wore its lagging hours away at last, and the cold gray dawn broke in the east.  As the light grew stronger the passengers began to stir and give signs of life, one after another, and each in turn pushed his slouched hat up from his forehead, stretched his stiffened limbs, and glanced out of the windows upon the cheerless prospect.  It was cheer less, indeed!-not a living thing visible anywhere, not a human habitation; nothing but a vast white desert; uplifted sheets of snow drifting hither and thither before the wind—­a world of eddying flakes shutting out the firmament above.

“All day we moped about the cars, saying little, thinking much.  Another lingering dreary night—­and hunger.

“Another dawning—­another day of silence, sadness, wasting hunger, hopeless watching for succor that could not come.  A night of restless slumber, filled with dreams of feasting—­wakings distressed with the gnawings of hunger.

“The fourth day came and went—­and the fifth!  Five days of dreadful imprisonment!  A savage hunger looked out at every eye.  There was in it a sign of awful import—­the foreshadowing of a something that was vaguely shaping itself in every heart—­a something which no tongue dared yet to frame into words.

“The sixth day passed—­the seventh dawned upon as gaunt and haggard and hopeless a company of men as ever stood in the shadow of death.  It must out now!  That thing which had been growing up in every heart was ready to leap from every lip at last!  Nature had been taxed to the utmost—­she must yield.  Richard H. Gaston of Minnesota, tall, cadaverous, and pale, rose up.  All knew what was coming.  All prepared—­every emotion, every semblance of excitement—­was smothered—­only a calm, thoughtful seriousness appeared in the eyes that were lately so wild.

“’Gentlemen:  It cannot be delayed longer!  The time is at hand!  We must determine which of us shall die to furnish food for the rest!’

“Mr. John J. Williams of Illinois rose and said:  ’Gentlemen—­I nominate the Rev. James Sawyer of Tennessee.’

“Mr. Wm. R. Adams of Indiana said:  ’I nominate Mr. Daniel Slote of New York.’

“Mr. Charles J. Langdon:  ‘I nominate Mr. Samuel A. Bowen of St. Louis.’

“Mr. Slote:  ’Gentlemen—­I desire to decline in favor of Mr. John A. Van Nostrand, Jun., of New Jersey.’

“Mr. Gaston:  ’If there be no objection, the gentleman’s desire will be acceded to.’

“Mr. Van Nostrand objecting, the resignation of Mr. Slote was rejected.  The resignations of Messrs. Sawyer and Bowen were also offered, and refused upon the same grounds.

“Mr. A. L. Bascom of Ohio:  ’I move that the nominations now close, and that the House proceed to an election by ballot.’