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.