It was a rough, broken country, and the boys had to slacken their pace somewhat; to make things worse, it presently began to rain. First came a driving drizzle, then a heavy downpour, with a strong southwest wind. The rocks streamed with water, and the boys were drenched; but the heavy rain presently settled again to a soaking drizzle that threatened to continue all day.
Through the rain they struggled ahead; sometimes they found a clear space where they could run; sometimes they came upon wet, tangled shrubbery that impeded them sadly. They kept hoping for easier traveling; but those broken, rocky hills stretched ahead for miles. At last the trees became even more sparse, and the boys encountered a whole hillside covered with a mass of split rock.
Over this litter of sandstone they crawled and stumbled at what seemed a snail's pace. They were desperately anxious to hurry, but they knew that a slip on those wet rocks might mean a broken leg.
A rain-washed slope of gravel came next; they went down it at a trot, and then encountered another hillside covered with huge, loose stones. They scrambled over it as best they could, and ran down another slope; then trees became more abundant, and soon they were again traveling over low, rolling hills clothed in jack-pine scrub.
With marvelous endurance Fred still held the lead. He went as if driven by machinery, with his head down and his lips clenched; he did not speak a word. He was supposed to be the weakest of the party, but even Macgregor, a trained cross-country runner, found himself falling farther and farther behind.
At eleven o'clock Horace called a halt. The rain had almost stopped, and the boys, lighting a small fire, roasted generous slices of venison. There was no need of sparing the meat now. Either plenty of food or death was at the end of the journey.
No sooner had they eaten it than Fred sprang up again.
"How you fellows can sit here I can't understand!" he exclaimed, nervously. "I'm going on. Are you coming?"
Mac and Horace followed him. The land seemed to be sloping continually to lower levels; the woods thickened into a sturdy, tangled growth of hemlock and tamarack that they had hard work to penetrate. They presently caught a glimpse of water ahead, and came to the shore of a small, narrow lake that curved away between rounded, dark hillsides. They had to go round the lake, and lost two or three miles by the détour. As they hurried up the shore a bull moose sprang from the water, paused an instant to look back, and crashed into the thickets. It would have been an easy shot if they had had the rifle.
Round the end of the lake low hills rose abruptly from the shore. After scrambling up the slippery slope of the hills they reached the top, and saw ahead of them an endless stretch of wild hills and forests; there was not a landmark that they recognized.