fully in the apparently careless indifference of the skilled woods
walker. Bob followed, but he used more energy. He was infinitely the
older man's superior in muscle and endurance, yet he realized, with
respect and admiration, that in a long or difficult day's tramp through
the woods Welton would probably hold him, step for step.

The road wound and changed direction entirely according to expedient. It
was a "tote road" merely, cutting across these barrens by the directest
possible route. Deep mire holes, roots of trees, an infrequent boulder,
puddles and cruel ruts diversified the way. Occasional teeth-rattling
stretches of "corduroy" led through a swamp.

"I don't see how a team can haul a load over this!" Bob voiced his
marvel, after a time.

"It don't," said Welton. "The supplies are all hauled while the ground
is frozen. A man goes by hand now."

In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide and wallow.
The going was trying on muscle and wind. To right and left stretched
mazes of white popples and willows tangled with old berry vines and the
abattis of the slashings. Water stood everywhere. To traverse that swamp
a man would have to force his way by main strength through the thick
growth, would have to balance on half-rotted trunks of trees, wade and
stumble through pools of varying depths, crawl beneath or climb over all
sorts of obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky new growths, and
old tree trunks. If he had a gun in his hands, he would furthermore be
compelled, through all the vicissitudes of making his way, to hold it
always at the balance ready for the snap shot. For a ruffed grouse is
wary, and flies like a bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost
before the roar of its wings has aroused the echoes. Through that veil
of branches a man must shoot quickly, instinctively, from any one of the
many positions in which the chance of the moment may have caught him.
Bob knew all about this sort of country, and his pulses quickened to the
call of it.

"Many partridge?" he asked.

"Lots," replied Welton; "but the country's too confounded big to hunt
them in. Like to hunt?"

"Nothing better," said Bob.

After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the hardwoods, full
of warmth and light and new young green, and the voices of many
creatures; with the soft, silent carpet of last autumn's brown, the tiny
patches of melting snow, and the pools with dead leaves sunk in them and
clear