"we'll have to
go after him."

"All right. Come up at once. I'll get McCrimmon. He's a good man in the
woods. We'll be ready to start as soon as you arrive."

So the following day found the three of us on the trail to Ophir. We
travelled lightly, carrying very little food, for we thought to find
game in the woods. On the evening of the following day we reached the
cabin.

Jim must have gone very suddenly. There were the remains of a meal on
the table, and his Bible was gone from its place. There was nothing for
it but to follow and find him.

"By going to the headwaters of Ophir Creek," said the Halfbreed, "we can
cross a divide into the valley of the White Snake, and there we'll
corral him, I guess."

So we left the trail and plunged into the virgin Wild. Oh, but it was
hard travelling! Often we would keep straight up the creek-bed, plunging
through pools that were knee-deep, and walking over shingly bars. Then,
to avoid a big bend of the stream, we would strike off through the bush.
Every yard seemed to have its obstacle. There were windfalls and tangled
growths of bush that defied our uttermost efforts to penetrate them.
There were viscid sloughs, from whose black depths bubbles arose
wearily, with grey tree-roots like the legs of spiders clutching the
slimy mud of their banks. There were oozy bottoms, rankly speared with
rush-grass. There were leprous marshes spotted with unsightly
niggerheads. Dripping with sweat, we fought our way under the hot sun.
Thorny boughs tore at us detainingly. Fallen trees delighted to bar our
way. Without let or cease we toiled, yet at the day's end our progress
was but a meagre one.

Our greatest bane was the mosquitoes. Night and day they never ceased to
nag us. We wore veils and had gloves on our hands, so that under our
armour we were able to grin defiance at them. But on the other side of
that netting they buzzed in an angry grey cloud. To raise our veils and
take a drink was to be assaulted ferociously. As we walked we could feel
them resisting our progress, and it seemed as if we were forcing our way
through solid banks of them. If we rested, they alighted in such myriads
that soon we appeared literally sheathed in tiny atoms of insect life,
vainly trying to pierce the mesh of our clothing. To bare a hand was to
have it covered with blood in a moment, and the thought of being at
their mercy was an exquisitely horrible one. Night and day their voices
blended in a vast dro