of his blankets around him and took out
his pipe. He did not remember how long he sat there, but it was clear
daylight when he noticed that the fire was burning out, and, somewhat
to his annoyance, he felt curiously reluctant to get up again.

Though it cost him an effort, he rose, and stood a minute or two
shivering in the bitter wind, which now set the dark firs sighing. He
could see the trees roll upwards before him in sombre ranks until
their topmost sprays cut in a thin filigree very high up against the
sky, and he knew that he must now leave the easy trail and cross the
big divide. When he set out he was a little annoyed to find that the
pack-straps hurt his shoulders, and that one of his boots galled his
foot. Knee-boots are not adapted for walking long distances, but the
only other ones that Nasmyth possessed were so dilapidated that he had
left them behind.

He went up for several hours through withered fern and matted
undergrowth, and over horrible tangles of fallen tree-trunks, some of
which were raised high above the snow on giant splintered branches.
The term "virgin forest" probably conveys very little to the average
Englishman, since the woods with which he is acquainted are, for the
most part, cleaned and dressed by foresters; but Nature rules
untrammelled in the pine-bush of the Pacific slope, and her waste
material lies piled in tremendous ruin until it rots away. There are
forests in that country, through which a man accustomed to them can
scarcely make a league in a day. Still, Nasmyth crossed the divide,
struggling against a bitter wind, and then went down the other side,
floundering over fallen branches, and smashing through thickets of
undergrowth and brakes of willows. He wanted to find the river, and,
more especially, the tree that bridged it, as soon as possible. It
was, however, noon when he reached the river, and it frothed and
roared a hundred feet below him in a smooth walled canyon, which had
apparently kept the frost out, for there were only strips of crackling
ice in the eddies.

It was clearly out of the question for him to get down to the river,
even if he had wished to make the descent, and without stopping to
make another fire, he plodded along the bank until the afternoon was
almost spent. There were a good many fallen trees, as he discovered to
his cost, since each one had to be painfully clambered over, but none
of them spanned the chasm. Then, as his foot was becoming very so