he lake, and he had gained three
days on himself. And when John Bellew overtook him, he was well along
toward Deep Lake, another volcanic pit filled with glacial water.

The last pack, from Long Lake to Linderman, was three miles, and
the trail, if trail it could be called, rose up over a thousand-foot
hogback, dropped down a scramble of slippery rocks, and crossed a wide
stretch of swamp. John Bellew remonstrated when he saw Kit arise with a
hundred pounds in the straps and pick up a fifty-pound sack of flour and
place it on top of the pack against the back of his neck.

"Come on, you chunk of the hard," Kit retorted. "Kick in on your
bear-meat fodder and your one suit of underclothes."

But John Bellew shook his head. "I'm afraid I'm getting old,
Christopher."

"You're only forty-eight. Do you realize that my grandfather, sir,
your father, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with his fist when he was
sixty-nine years old?"

John Bellew grinned and swallowed his medicine.

"Avuncular, I want to tell you something important. I was raised a Lord
Fauntleroy, but I can outpack you, outwalk you, put you on your back, or
lick you with my fists right now."

John Bellew thrust out his hand and spoke solemnly. "Christopher, my
boy, I believe you can do it. I believe you can do it with that pack
on your back at the same time. You've made good, boy, though it's too
unthinkable to believe."

Kit made the round trip of the last pack four times a day, which is to
say that he daily covered twenty-four miles of mountain climbing, twelve
miles of it under one hundred and fifty pounds. He was proud, hard, and
tired, but in splendid physical condition. He ate and slept as he had
never eaten and slept in his life, and as the end of the work came in
sight, he was almost half sorry.

One problem bothered him. He had learned that he could fall with a
hundred-weight on his back and survive; but he was confident, if he fell
with that additional fifty pounds across the back of his neck, that it
would break it clean. Each trail through the swamp was quickly churned
bottomless by the thousands of packers, who were compelled continually
to make new trails. It was while pioneering such a new trail, that he
solved the problem of the extra fifty.

The soft, lush surface gave way under him; he floundered, and pitched
forward on his face. The fifty pounds crushed his face in the mud and
went clear without snapping his neck. With the remaining