The maddening song of the mosquitoes was always with him. Only when he slept did he escape from it. The heavy gloves, the netting, the smudge fires were at best an insufficient protection.
It was the seventh night out that Elliot suspected he was off the trail. Rain sluiced down in torrents and next day continued to pour from a dun sky. His own tracks were blotted out and he searched for the trail in vain. Before the rain stopped, he was thoroughly disturbed in mind. It would be a serious business if he should be lost in the bad lands of the bogs. Even though he knew the general direction he must follow, there was no certainty that he would ever emerge from this swamp into which he had plunged.
Before he knew it he was entangled in Fifty-Mile. His map showed him the morass stretched for fifty miles to the south, but he knew that it had been charted hurriedly by a surveying party which had made no extensive explorations. A good deal of this country was terra incognita. It ran vaguely into a No Man's Land unknown to the prospector.
The going was heavy. Gordon had to pick his way through the mossy swamp, leading the pack-horse by the bridle. Sometimes he was ankle-deep in water of a greenish slime. Again he had to drag the animal from the bog to a hummock of grass which gave a spongy footing. This would end in another quagmire of peat through which they must plough with the mud sucking at their feet. It was hard, wearing toil. There was nothing to do but keep moving. The young man staggered forward till dusk. Utterly exhausted, he camped for the night on a hillock of moss that rose like an island in the swamp.
After he had eaten he fed his fire with green boughs that raised a dense smoke. He lay on the leeward side where the smoke drifted over him and fought mosquitoes till a shift of the wind lessened the plague. Toward midnight he rigged up a net for protection and crawled into his blankets. Instantly he fell sound asleep.
Elliot traveled next day by the compass. He had food for three days more, but he knew that no living man had the strength to travel for so long in such a morass. It was near midday when he lost his horse. The animal had bogged down several times and Gordon had wasted much time and spent a good deal of needed energy in dragging it to firmer footing. This time the pony refused to answer the whip. Its master unloaded pack and saddle. He tried coaxing; he tried the whip.
"Come, Old-Timer. One plunge, and you'll make it yet," he urged.
The pack-horse turned upon him dumb eyes of reproach, struggled to free its limbs from the mud, and sank down helplessly. It had traveled its last yard on the long Alaska trails.
After the sound of the shot had died away, Gordon struggled with the pack to the nearest hummock. He cut holes in a gunny-sack to fit his shoulders and packed into it his blankets, a saucepan, the beans, the coffee, and the diminished handful of flour. Into it went too the three slices of bacon that were left.