own timber, some
freshly-fallen, making well-nigh impassable barricades erected on the
stumps of its broken branches, some which crumbled to powder at a touch.
There was no undergrowth except a few lean shrubs that stretched great,
pale leaves to catch the attenuated rays that filtered down. It was as
cool and still as a room with a lofty ceiling. High overhead the leaves
sparkled in the sun.

It was about half a mile to the foot of the bench, that is to say, to
the side of the gigantic trough that carried the river through the
prairie country, though it required an amount of exertion that would
have carried one over ten times that distance of road. As soon as Stonor
began to climb he left the forest behind him; first it diminished into
scattered trees and scrub and then ceased altogether in clean, short
grass, already curing under the summer sun. Presently Stonor was able
to look clear over the tops of the trees; it was like rising from a
mine.

The slope was not regular, but pushed up everywhere in fantastic knolls
and terraces. He directed his course as he climbed for a bold projecting
point from which he hoped to obtain a prospect up the valley. Reaching
it at last, he gave himself a breathing-space. He saw, as he hoped, that
the valley, which here ran due north and south, returned to its normal
course from the westward a few miles above. Thus, by making a bee-line
across the prairie, he could cut off a great bend in the watercourse,
not to speak of the lesser windings of the river in its valley. He
prayed that Imbrie might have many a rapid to buck that day.

On top of the bench the prairie rolled to the horizon with nothing to
break the expanse of grass but patches of scrub. Stonor's heart,
burdened as it was, lifted up at the sight. "After all, there's nothing
like the old bald-headed to satisfy a man's soul," he thought. "If I
only had Miles Aroon under me now!" Taking his bearings, he set off
through the grass at the rolling walk he had learned from the Indians.

Of that long day there is little to report. The endless slopes of grass
presented no distinguishing features; he was alone with the west wind's
noble clouds. He came up on the wind on a brown bear with cream-coloured
snout staying his stomach with the bark of poplar shoots until the
berries should be ripe, and sent him doubling himself up with a shout.
Time was too precious to allow of more than one spell. This he took
beside a stream of clear wate