the stars clouded over again, and in the consequent obscurity he slipped
and rolled and slid for a hundred feet, landing bruised and bleeding on
the bottom of a large shallow hole. From all about him arose the stench
of dead horses. The hole was handy to the trail, and the packers had
made a practice of tumbling into it their broken and dying animals. The
stench overpowered him, making him deadly sick, and as in a nightmare he
scrambled out. Half-way up, he recollected Bondell's gripsack. It had
fallen into the hole with him; the pack-strap had evidently broken, and
he had forgotten it. Back he went into the pestilential charnel-pit,
where he crawled around on hands and knees and groped for half an hour.
Altogether he encountered and counted seventeen dead horses (and one
horse still alive that he shot with his revolver) before he found
Bondell's grip. Looking back upon a life that had not been without
valour and achievement, he unhesitatingly declared to himself that this
return after the grip was the most heroic act he had ever performed. So
heroic was it that he was twice on the verge of fainting before he
crawled out of the hole.

By the time he had descended to the Scales, the steep pitch of Chilcoot
was past, and the way became easier. Not that it was an easy way,
however, in the best of places; but it became a really possible trail,
along which he could have made good time if he had not been worn out, if
he had had light with which to pick his steps, and if it had not been for
Bondell's gripsack. To him, in his exhausted condition, it was the last
straw. Having barely strength to carry himself along, the additional
weight of the grip was sufficient to throw him nearly every time he
tripped or stumbled. And when he escaped tripping, branches reached out
in the darkness, hooked the grip between his shoulders, and held him
back.