est we can to-night, eh?"

"Precisely," said Uncle Dick, "and only one blanket for two. That,
with our rifles and axes and some bacon and flour, will make all the
load we need in a country such as this."

Equipped for the chase, early in the day they plunged into the dense
forest which seemed to fill up completely the valley of the little
stream which came tumbling down out of the high country. Leo went
ahead at a good pace, followed by Moise and George with their packs.
Uncle Dick and the young hunters carried no packs, but, even so, they
were obliged to keep up a very fast gait to hold the leaders in sight.
The going was the worst imaginable, the forest being full of
devil's-club and alder, and the course--for path or trail there was
none--often leading directly across the trunk of some great tree over
which none of the boys could climb unassisted.

At times they reached places along the valley where the only cover was
a dense growth of alders, all of which leaned downhill close to the
ground, and then curved up strongly at their extremities. Perhaps no
going is worse than side-hill country covered with bent alders, and
sometimes the boys almost lost their patience. They could not stoop
down under the alders, and could hardly crawl over or through them.

"This is the worst ever, Uncle Dick," complained Jesse. "What makes
them grow this way?"

"It's the snow," replied his uncle. "All this country has a very heavy
snowfall in the winter. It packs down these bushes and slides down
over them until it combs them all downhill. Then when the snow melts
or slides off the ends of the bushes begin to grow up again toward the
light and the sun. That's why they curve at the ends and why they lie
so flat to the ground. Mixed in with devil's-club, I must say these
alders are enough to try a saint."

In the course of an hour or so they had passed the heaviest forest
growth and gotten above the worst of the alder thicket. On ahead they
could now begin to see steep mountainsides, and their progress was up
the shoulder of a mountain, at as sharp an angle as they could well
accomplish. After a time they came to a steep slope still covered
with a long, slanting drift of snow which ran down sharply to the
tumbling creek below them. Across this the three men with the packs
already made their way, but the boys hesitated, for the snow seemed to
lie at an angle of at least forty-five degrees, and a slip would have
meant a long roll to