The road wound and changed direction entirely according to expedient.  It was a “tote road” merely, cutting across these barrens by the directest possible route.  Deep mire holes, roots of trees, an infrequent boulder, puddles and cruel ruts diversified the way.  Occasional teeth-rattling stretches of “corduroy” led through a swamp.

“I don’t see how a team can haul a load over this!” Bob voiced his marvel, after a time.

“It don’t,” said Welton.  “The supplies are all hauled while the ground is frozen.  A man goes by hand now.”

In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide and wallow.  The going was trying on muscle and wind.  To right and left stretched mazes of white popples and willows tangled with old berry vines and the abattis of the slashings.  Water stood everywhere.  To traverse that swamp a man would have to force his way by main strength through the thick growth, would have to balance on half-rotted trunks of trees, wade and stumble through pools of varying depths, crawl beneath or climb over all sorts of obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky new growths, and old tree trunks.  If he had a gun in his hands, he would furthermore be compelled, through all the vicissitudes of making his way, to hold it always at the balance ready for the snap shot.  For a ruffed grouse is wary, and flies like a bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost before the roar of its wings has aroused the echoes.  Through that veil of branches a man must shoot quickly, instinctively, from any one of the many positions in which the chance of the moment may have caught him.  Bob knew all about this sort of country, and his pulses quickened to the call of it.

“Many partridge?” he asked.

“Lots,” replied Welton; “but the country’s too confounded big to hunt them in.  Like to hunt?”

“Nothing better,” said Bob.

After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the hardwoods, full of warmth and light and new young green, and the voices of many creatures; with the soft, silent carpet of last autumn’s brown, the tiny patches of melting snow, and the pools with dead leaves sunk in them and clear surfaces over which was mirrored the flight of birds.

Welton puffed along steadily.  He did not appear to talk much, and yet the sum of his information was considerable.

“That road,” he said, pointing to a dim track, “goes down to Thompson’s.  He’s a settler.  Lives on a little lake.

“There’s a deer,” he remarked, “over in that thicket against the hill.”

Bob looked closely, but could see nothing until the animal bounded away, waving the white flag of its tail.