Carroll sat down and filled his pipe.
"It's the natural result of possessing a temperament like yours. Somehow, you've got it firmly fixed into your mind that everything worth doing must be hard."
"I've generally found it so."
"I think," grinned Carroll, "you've generally made it so. There's a marked difference between the two. If any means of doing a thing looks easy, you at once conclude that it can't be the right one. That mode of reasoning has never appealed to me. In my opinion, it's more sensible to try the easiest method first."
"As a rule, that leads to your having to fall back upon the other one; and a frontal attack on a difficulty's often quicker than considering how you can work round its flank. In this case, I'll own we have wasted a lot of time and taken a good deal of trouble that might have been avoided. But are you going to sit here and smoke?"
"Until I've finished my pipe," Carroll answered firmly. "I expect we'll find tobacco, among other things, getting pretty scarce before this expedition ends."
He carried out his intention, and they afterward pushed on up the valley during the remainder of the day. It grew more level as they proceeded, and in spite of the frost, which bound the feeding snows, there was a steady flow of water down the river, which was free from rocky barriers. Vane now and then glanced at the river attentively, and when dusk was drawing near he stopped and fixed his gaze on the long ranks of trees that stretched away in front of him; fretted spires of somber greenery lifted high above a colonnade of mighty trunks.
"Does anything in connection with this bush strike you?" he asked.
"Its stiffness, if that's what you mean," Carroll answered with a smile. "These big conifers look as if they'd been carved, like the wooden trees in the Swiss or German toys. They're impressive in a way, but they're too formally artificial."
"That's not what I mean," Vane said impatiently.