eated with no great variation for
several weeks, except that now and then they swam or ferried
themselves on logs over very cold and rapid rivers. Still, thanks to
the surveyor's professional skill, they were quartering the country
systematically, and, though now and then they had to leave the horse
at a base camp under Grenfell's charge, they had to grapple with no
insuperable difficulty.

A good many leagues of range and forest had been traversed when they
reached a tract where they had trouble in finding water. There was
snow above them, but it either soaked down through the strata, or the
drainage from it descended on the other side of the divide. It was
also, though not quite summer yet, unusually hot weather, and the
season had been exceptionally dry, and they had contented themselves
for a week with the little muddy fluid they scraped up here and there
from oozy pools that were lined with pine needles and rotting leaves,
when they came to a big brulee.

It filled a deep valley that was hemmed in by almost precipitous
crags, and though charred logs and branches lay here and there, most
of the burned forest was still standing. As a matter of fact, a fire
in this region very seldom brings the trees down. It merely strips
them. As the men pushed wearily on, endless ranks of blackened trunks
moved steadily back before them. There was not a branch left. The
trees were tremendous, half-calcined columns, and, for it was evident
that any wild wind seldom entered the deep hollow, they might have
stood in that condition a year or more. The trouble in traversing a
brulee is that one cannot tell when, from some cause or other, one of
them may come down.

It was about noon, and they had with some difficulty dined on
grindstone bread and canned stuff without a drink of any kind, when
Weston, who was leading the horse, pulled it up suddenly. He was
thirsty and short of temper, and in a mood that would have made it
easier for him to smash through an obstacle instead of stopping, but
he fancied that he saw a great blackened trunk close in front of him
lean over a trifle. He was sure of it in another moment, and he urged
the horse aside, for the towering column swayed and oscillated as
though it strove to recover its equipoise, and then suddenly rushed
earthward. He felt the wind it made strike cold upon his cheek, and
then there was a deafening crash, and a cloud of fine black dust rose
up. It whirled and eddied about him like