sled an' plenty of men
to haul ye."

After a breakfast of hot beans, biscuits and steaming tea at the camp,
the procession moved. Parker was wrapped in tattered bunk blankets and
installed in state on a long, narrow sledge. He was given the option of
getting off and walking whenever he needed the exercise to warm himself.

The march was brisk all that day, for the brawny woodsmen followed the
snowy trail unflaggingly. After the six miles of the carry tote-road,
their way led up the crooked West Branch on the ice. There were detours
where the open waters roared down rough gorges fast enough to dodge
the chilling hand of Jack Frost; there were broad dead waters where
the river widened into small lakes. Parker was oppressed by the nervous
dread of one who enters a strange new country and faces a danger toward
which a fate stronger than he is pressing him.

At noon they ate a lunch beside a crackling fire which warmed the cooked
provisions they had brought from the carry camp.

Parker walked during the afternoon to ease his cold-stiffened limbs.
Toward dusk the party left the river and turned into a tote-road that
writhed away under snow-laden spruces and hemlocks, coiled its way about
rocky hummocks, and curved in "whip-lashes" up precipitous hillsides.
There was not a break in the forest that stretched away on either hand.

Late in the evening they saw in a valley below them a group of log huts,
their snowy roofs silvered by the moonlight. Yellow gleams from the low
windows showed that the camp was occupied.

"That's the Sourdanheunk baitin'-place," Connick explained, in answer
to a question from his captive. "One o' Ward's tote-team hang-ups an'
feedin'-places."

The cook, a sallow, tall man encased in a dirty canvas shroud of an
apron, was apparently expecting the party. More beans, more biscuits,
more steaming tea--and then a bunk was spread for Parker. His previous
night of vigil and his day spent in the wind had benumbed his faculties,
and he speedily forgot his fears and his bitter resentment in profound
slumber.

The next morning the cook's "Whoo-ee!" called the men before the dawn,
and they were away while the first flushes presaged the sunrise. It
seemed that day that the tortuous tote-road would never end. Valley
succeeded to "horseback" and "horseback" to valley. Woods miles are long
miles.

Parker's railroad eye and engineer's discernment bitterly condemned the
divagations of the wight who wandered