And as they gained a greater
elevation and the timbered bottoms gave way to rocky hills over which
she must perforce walk and lead her horse, the sweat of the exertion
stung and burned intolerably, like salt water on an open wound.
Minor hardships, these; scarcely to be dignified by that name, more in
the nature of aggravated discomforts they were. But they irked, and,
like any accumulation of small things, piled up a disheartening total.
By imperceptible degrees the glamour of the trail, the lure of
gypsying, began to lessen. She found herself longing for the Pine
River cabin, for surcease from this never-ending journey. But she
would not have owned this to Roaring Bill; not for the world. It
savored of weakness, disloyalty. She felt ashamed. Still--it was no
longer a pleasure jaunt. The country they bore steadily up into grew
more and more forbidding. The rugged slopes bore no resemblance to the
kindly, peaceful land where the cabin stood. Swamps and reedy lakes
lurked in low places. The hills stood forth grim and craggy, gashed
with deep-cleft gorges, and rising to heights more grim and desolate at
the uttermost reach of her vision. And into the heart of this, toward
a far-distant area where she could faintly distinguish virgin snow on
peaks that pierced the sky, they traveled day after day.
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