“No mosquito-tent now, fellows,” said Rob, laughing. “That’ll be too heavy to pack up—we’ll take the light silk shelter-tent, and get on the best we can to-night, eh?”
“Precisely,” said Uncle Dick, “and only one blanket for two. That, with our rifles and axes and some bacon and flour, will make all the load we need in a country such as this.”
Equipped for the chase, early in the day they plunged into the dense forest which seemed to fill up completely the valley of the little stream which came tumbling down out of the high country. Leo went ahead at a good pace, followed by Moise and George with their packs. Uncle Dick and the young hunters carried no packs, but, even so, they were obliged to keep up a very fast gait to hold the leaders in sight. The going was the worst imaginable, the forest being full of devil’s-club and alder, and the course—for path or trail there was none—often leading directly across the trunk of some great tree over which none of the boys could climb unassisted.
At times they reached places along the valley where the only cover was a dense growth of alders, all of which leaned downhill close to the ground, and then curved up strongly at their extremities. Perhaps no going is worse than side-hill country covered with bent alders, and sometimes the boys almost lost their patience. They could not stoop down under the alders, and could hardly crawl over or through them.
“This is the worst ever, Uncle Dick,” complained Jesse. “What makes them grow this way?”
“It’s the snow,” replied his uncle. “All this country has a very heavy snowfall in the winter. It packs down these bushes and slides down over them until it combs them all downhill. Then when the snow melts or slides off the ends of the bushes begin to grow up again toward the light and the sun. That’s why they curve at the ends and why they lie so flat to the ground. Mixed in with devil’s-club, I must say these alders are enough to try a saint.”
In the course of an hour or so they had passed the heaviest forest growth and gotten above the worst of the alder thicket. On ahead they could now begin to see steep mountainsides, and their progress was up the shoulder of a mountain, at as sharp an angle as they could well accomplish. After a time they came to a steep slope still covered with a long, slanting drift of snow which ran down sharply to the tumbling creek below them. Across this the three men with the packs already made their way, but the boys hesitated, for the snow seemed to lie at an angle of at least forty-five degrees, and a slip would have meant a long roll to the bottom of the slope.
“It’s perfectly safe,” said Uncle Dick, “especially since the others have stamped in footholds. You just follow me and step in my tracks. Not that way, Jesse—don’t lean in toward the slope, for that is not the way to cross ice or snow on a side-hill. If you lean in, don’t you see, you make yourself most liable to slip? Walk just as straight up as though you were on level ground—that’s the safest position you can take.”
“Well,” said Jesse, “I can understand how that theory works, but it’s awfully hard not to lean over when you feel as though your feet were going to slip from under you.”
They gained confidence as they advanced on the icy side-hill, and got across without mishap. Soon they came up with the three packers, who were resting and waiting for them.