At times the march measured a full day's length amid the columned aisles
of the forest temple through lush green glades dank and steaming in the
August heat, or over hillsides slippery with the fallen leaves of the
pine-trees. Anon it traced the crooked windings of some brawling
mountain stream through thicket tangles where, you would think, no
woman-ridden horse could penetrate.

One day the sun would shine resplendent and all the columned distances
would fill with soft suffusings of the gray and green and gold, with
here and there a dusky flame where the sweet-gum heralded the autumn,
whilst overhead the leafy arches were fine-lined traceries and
arabesques against the blue. But in the night, mayhap, a dismal rain
would come, chill with the breath of the nearing mountains; and then the
trees turned into dripping sprinkling-pots to drench us where we lay,
sodden already with the heaviness of exhaustion.

Since the hasting pursuit was a thing to tap the very fountain-head of
fortitude and endurance, we fared on silent for the better part; and in
a little time the hush of the solitudes laid fast hold of us, scanting
us of speech and bidding us go softly. And after this the march became a
soundless shadow-flitting, and we a straggling file of voiceless
mechanisms wound up and set to measure off the miles till famine or
exhaustion should thrust a finger in among the wheels and bid them stop
forever.

This was the loom on which we wove the backward-reaching web of
strenuous onpressing. But through that web the scarlet thread of famine
shuttled in and out, and hunger came and marched with us till all the
days and nights were filled with cravings, and we recked little of fair
skies or dripping clouds, or aught besides save this ever-present