On shore he cleaned the three fish and spread them in the sun on flat rocks to dry. He sat looking at the water and wondered if there were shellfish here also. He took the canoe out again, this time keeping very close to shore. He came to a half-submerged rock where he found a bed of oysters, and on the bottom of the sandy bay there were clams, which disappeared when he disturbed the water. By late afternoon he had gathered many of the oysters and dug pounds and pounds of clams. His fish were not dry, and he knew they would spoil if he didn't do something else. He pondered, staring at the bay, and he realized the ice floes were the answer.

Once more he went out into the water, and this time he maneuvered close enough to one of the larger slabs of ice to get his rope around it and tow it back to shore. He wove a shallow basket of pine branches, put the clams on the bottom, then the oysters, and on top of them the fish. He put the basket on the flat ice, hacked off pieces of the ice with his knife, and put them over everything. Then he relaxed. He had used up almost the whole day in gathering the food, making sure it would not spoil before he could eat it. But he didn't care. Later when he ate roasted fish and wild asparagus, he knew he had never eaten any food half as good.

From where he camped, the Delaware was a black hole in the dark forest. Now and then the blackness was broken by a pale shadow that moved without a sound, as if floating in air. Ice. The river was very high; on the banks some trees were standing in water; there might be others invisible until too late, or rocks, or other perils. Mark considered the hazards of that black river and felt only contentment, and the next morning he entered it and headed for Philadelphia.

It was the cities that depressed him, he thought, staring at the gray ruins on either side of the Schuylkill River. As far as he could see in any direction there was the same vista of gray ruins. The city had burned, but not to the ground as Baltimore had. Some buildings seemed almost intact here, but everywhere the same grayness persisted, the same ugliness of destruction. Trees had started to grow here, but even they were ugly, stunted, sickly-looking.