Hundreds of huge trees lay strewn about, as if they had been wrenched off their stumps by some irresistible power seizing the branched heads and hurling them to the earth. Torn up by the massy roots, or twisted round as you would try to break an obstinately tough withe, for many score of acres the wildest confusion of prostrate maples and elms and pines, heaped upon one another, locked in death-embraces, quite obliterated any track, and blocked across the country. Arthur had come upon what French Canadians call a 'renversé' effected by some partial whirlwind during the preceding summer.
Such tornadoes often crash a road of destruction through the bush for miles; a path narrow in comparison with its length, and reminding the traveller of the explosive fury of some vast projectile. The track of one has been observable for more than forty miles right through the heart of uninhabited forest.
To cross the stupendous barrier seemed impossible to Arthur. There was a tangled chaos of interlaced and withering boughs and trunks; such a chevaux de frise might stop a regiment until some slow sap cut a path through, and he was without axe, or even a large knife. He must work his way round; and yet he was most unwilling to part company with the blaze.
While hesitating, and rather ruefully contemplating the obstacle, a sound at a considerable distance struck his ear. It was—oh, joy!—the blows of an axe. Instantly he went in the direction. When near enough to be heard, he shouted. An answering hail came from the other side of the windfall; but presently he saw that an attempt had been made to log up the fallen timber in heaps, and, making his way through the blackened stumps of extinct fires, he reached the spot where two rough-looking men were at work with handspikes and axes.
They had built a little hut, whence a faint smoke curled, the back wall of piled logs still wearing dead branches and foliage at the ends. A reddish cur, as lawless-looking as his masters, rushed from the doorway to snap at Arthur's heels. The suspicious glances of the foresters bore hardly more welcome, till they heard that the stranger belonged to the settlers on Cedar Pond, and had simply lost his way. They informed him in return, with exceeding frankness, that they were squatters, taking possession of this strip of bush without anybody's leave, and determined to hold their own against all comers. An apparently well-used rifle lying against a log close by gave this speech considerable emphasis.
Arthur wanted nothing more from them than to be put on the surveyor's line again; and, when directed to the blaze, speedily left the sound of their axes far behind. In half an hour he reached other traces of mankind—a regularly chopped road, where the trees had been felled for the proper width, and only here and there an obstinate trunk had come down wrongly, and lay right across, to be climbed over or crept under according to the wayfarer's taste. In marshy spots he was treated to strips of corduroy; for the settled parts of the country were near.
'Holloa! Uncle Zack, is that you?'
The person addressed stood in a snake-fenced field, superintending a couple of labourers. He turned round at the hail, and stared as if he did not believe his senses.
'Wal, I guess I warn't never skeered in my life before. They're all out lookin' for you—Nim, an' the whole "Corner" bodily. Your brother's distracted ravin' mad this two days huntin' the bush; but I told him you'd be sartin sure to turn up somehow. Now, whar are you runnin' so fast? There ain't nobody to hum, an' we 'greed to fire the rifles as a signal whoever fust got tidins of you. Three shots arter another,' as young Wynn fired in the air. 'Come, quick as wink, they'll be listenin'.'
'Robert will know the report,' observed Arthur, with a smile, to think of his pleasure in the recognition, 'if he's near enough.'