ore we had gone very far along the forest track, the perspiration was
oozing out fast on my forehead; and lightly as I was loaded, I began to
think regretfully of the boat, and of how much easier it was to sit or
kneel there, and watch the Indians paddle, while over and over again I
had come to the conclusion that it was a very fortunate thing that we
were not alone, but backed up by such a tower of strength as Gunson,
whose counsels were called in question every few minutes to decide which
way we were to go next.

The direction was undoubted, for, so long as we kept to the valley in
which the river ran, we could not be wrong, but the task was to keep
along it by a way that was passable to people carrying loads.

For a mile or so beyond the tiny settlement we had left behind, we
found, as we had been told, some traces of a track; but it was wanting
more often than present, and several times over we thought we had come
to the end of it, only for it to begin again some fifty yards further
on.

At last though we had passed the final vestige of a trail, and there was
the valley before us with the mountains rising up steeply on either
side, and our way to make along the steep slope crowded with trees or
covered with the _debris_ of great masses of rock which had broken from
their hold hundreds upon hundreds of yards above us to come thundering
down scattering smaller fragments, and forming a chaos of moss-covered
pieces, over and in and out among which we had to make our way.

"Rather rough," Gunson said, "but keep up your spirits: it will soon be
much better, or much worse."

"It's always like that--worse," Esau grumbled to me at last, as our
companion went forward, while the patient little Chinaman plodded on
with his load as steadily as if he had been a machine.

"Never mind, Esau," I said.

"I don't," he replied, sturdily; and he drew himself up, and tramped on
with the rifle over his shoulder, evidently very proud of being trusted
with it; but he had an unpleasant way of turning sharply round every now
and then to look at something, with the result that, after being struck
smartly by the barrel of the piece, I had to jump out of his way.

"Beg your pardon," he would say, and a few minutes after forget all
about it, and turn the barrel upon me again.

"I say, Esau," I cried, at last, "do be careful with that gun."

"'Tain't a gun--it's a rifle."

"Call it what you like, but don't shoot me."

"Ain't going to