nothing alone, he broke through the opposing wilderness.




CHAPTER THIRTEEN


Sam Bolton gauged perfectly the spirit in his comrade, but paid it
little attention. He knew it as a chemical reaction of a certain phase
of forest travel. It argued energy, determination, dogged pluck when the
need should arise, and so far it was good. The woods life affects
various men in various ways, but all in a manner peculiar to itself. It
is a reagent unlike any to be found in other modes of life. The moment
its influence reaches the spirit, in that moment does the man change
utterly from the person he has been in other and ordinary surroundings;
and the instant he emerges from its control he reverts to his accustomed
bearing. But in the dwelling of the woods he becomes silent. It may be
the silence of a self-contained sufficiency; the silence of an equable
mind; the silence variously of awe, even of fear; it may be the silence
of sullenness. This, as much as the vast stillness of the wilderness,
has earned for the region its designation of the Silent Places.

Nor did the older woodsman fear any direct results from the younger's
very real, though baseless, anger. These men were bound together by
something stronger than any part of themselves. Over them stood the
Company, and to its commands all other things gave way. No matter how
rebellious might be Dick Herron's heart, how ruffled the surface of his
daily manner, Bolton knew perfectly well he would never for a single
instant swerve in his loyalty to the main object of the expedition.