The two continued on the winding trail, which was now lined with human habitations, set down without any idea of system. Some were cabins, others tents, others still a combination of the two—such, indeed, as was John's "home-ranch." Before many of them camp-fires were crackling and burning, and meals were being prepared. The two who were or had been the leaders of the opposing parties passed without attention being paid to them.
"Ah! there's the danger signal, the result of the first frost, and a sign that summer will soon pass away." John pointed to a willow whose leaves had turned crimson and scarlet.
"Yes, we shall have winter soon; this weather won't last. But you are in error in supposing that the bright tints in our foliage are due to frost; the mistake is very common. The redness is mere ripeness."
They found many topics in common, and mutual interest made the stiff effort less trying as they climbed and climbed.
As they approached a point on the trail, half way to the summit, a man was seen coming down, dragging a log by a rope. They stepped aside from the path, which here was on the side hill. Berwick, who was outside, happened to place his foot on a loose lump of moss lying on a stone. It moved; his foot slipped; he lost his balance. He struggled on the shelving ground, grabbed at some grass, was tangled in some brush, tore his hands, went down with a crash, being stopped by a sharpened stump of a severed tree-trunk. The point grazed his arm and pierced the body under the shoulder-blade. At once the Commandant and the woodman went to his help, but the jar of attempting to raise him brought a cry of pain. It was necessary to cut the tree-stump before he could be assisted to his feet.
They had to carry him down the hill, his mind in a half-swoon punctuated with throbs and stabs of pain, until he awoke to consciousness in the St. George's Hospital.
It seemed more as the remembrance of a dream than of actual occurrence. He was in England. Even the voice of Alice ...
A pungent odour was about him. He heard a buzzing rising rapidly in key, higher—higher—yet higher; higher—higher still; then there was a "click." As John Berwick's senses were stolen away by the blessed influence of an anæsthetic his lips framed the word "Alice." She heard the name, and was glad.
The first words John uttered as the drug left him were incoherent; but gradually they took form.
"Who's afraid to die? I'm not afraid to die. What's the good of a man's religion if he's afraid to die?"